stefansson-wrangel-09-39-004

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some hard bread soaked in oil and fried. He said he would, so I fixed
some, for that was all that we had. That was the day that 1 got the seagull.
The next morning he said that he felt much better so I cooked the seagull
and gave him some of the broth. Around in February when he first got sick
he gave me his Bible which belonged to his Grandfather.

Along in June, about the first week, I took a walk to
the west of our camp and when I was coming back across the harbor I noticed
some seagull along the beach and I wondered what they had. I thought
perhaps it was some walrus meat or something like that. But when I got there
I found they were building a nest and I found one egg. I tried to kill some
of them but couldn’t, so decided not to waste any more time. I had one egg
for the night anyway. While on the rest of my way home across the lake, some
white geese flew over my head. I took a shot at them and they went on for
about one hundred feet, then one of them dropped and I sure was glad. So
when I got home I called to Knight, "Look what I got.” He opened his eyes
and said, "What is that, seagull?” I said, "No, it is white geese and one
seagull egg." He wanted to know if the egg was fresh and I told him it was
warm when I found it. So I fried it for him but first I had to break it
into a cup to show him it was fresh. I cooked the wild goose until the
meat fell away from the bone, but Knight had very few teeth because they
were falling out from scurvy. About three days afterwards I went back to
the place where I had found the egg and found nine more in the same nest,
and Knight ate those eggs while he was living because he couldn't eat
meat on account of his throat being so sore. He'was so weak that I had to
hold his head to give him a drink of water. I made a canvas bag and
filled this bag with hot sand to keep his feet warm, every morning and
night for two months I heated this sand and put it to his feet.

About three or four weeks before he died I had to make
a bag from oatmeal sacks and filled it with cotton to put under his back
because he said it was so very sore. He told me that if anything happened
to him, if he was to die, to put his diary and some papers he had written
in his trunk, and that I would find the key to his trunk in his trouser's
pocket. He also told me to look after his camera and rifle, be sure and
keep them dry. I don't know how many times he told me to be sure and care
for his camera and rifle. About the day before he died I knew that he
couldn't last much longer. He was unconscious and I was standing looking
down at him and the tears were in my eyes, for I thought he was going to
die. He looked up at me and said, "What is the matter, Ada?” And I told
him that I thought he was going to leave me. I just couldn't help but
cry for I knew he wouldn't last until the boat got there and then I would
be all alone. He told me to try and get along some way until the boat
arrived. He died June 22, 1923, I found him dead the next morning after
he saw me crying. I don't know what time he died but some time in the
night. After he died a wrote a letter to Mr. Stefansson and told him what
day, month and the cause of Mr. Knight's death, because I thought something
might happen to me, then they wouldn't know what happened to him, because a
wild animal or something might get me before the boat arrived. I also
wrote a letter to Mr. Galle who I thought was in Nome, Alaska. I left the
letters in the typewriter so if I was not there when the boat arrived they
would find the letters and know of our deaths. I left Mr. Knight in the
tent, for I could not bury him, and I moved into another one that we had
used mostly for storing things in.