many pleasant days with my Esquimo friends and learned much of the
folk-lore and history. Lofty mountains, sublime in their grandeur,
overtower and surround this place, and its only exposure is southward
toward the sun. In winter its climate is not severe, as compared with
other portions of this country, and in the perpetual daylight of summer,
life here is ideal. Rivulets of clear, cold water, the beds of which
are grass- and flower-covered, run down the sides of the mountains and,
but for the lack of trees, the landscape is as delightful as anywhere on
earth.

CHAPTER XX

TWO NARROW ESCAPES--ARRIVAL AT ETAH--HARRY WHITNEY--DR. COOK'S CLAIMS

From Karnah the _Roosevelt_ sailed to Itiblu, where hunting-parties
secured thirty-one walrus and one seal. By the 11th of August we had
reached the northern shore of Northumberland Island, where we were
delayed by storm. It was shortly before noon of this day that we barely
escaped another fatal calamity.

Chief Wardwell, while cleaning the rifle of Commander Peary, had the
misfortune to have the piece explode while in his hands. From some
unknown cause a cartridge was discharged, the projectile pierced two
thick partitions of inch-and-a-half pine, and penetrated the cabin
occupied by Professor MacMillan and Mr. Borup. The billet of that bullet
was the shoulder and forearm of Professor MacMillan, who at the time was
sound asleep in his berth. He had been lying with his arm doubled and
his head resting on his hand. A half inch nearer and the bullet would
have entered his brain.

As is always the case with narrow escapes, I, too, had a narrow escape,
for that same bullet entered the partition on its death-dealing mission
at identically the same spot where a few minutes previously _my_ head
had rested. Dr. Goodsell was quickly aroused, he attended Professor
MacMillan, and in a short time he diagnosed the case as a "gun-shot
wound." Finding no bones broken, or veins or arteries open, he soon had
the Professor bandaged and comfortable.

At the time of the accident to Professor MacMillan the ship was riding
at anchor, but with insufficient slack-way, so in the afternoon, when
the excitement had somewhat abated, Captain Bob decided to give the ship
more chain, for a storm was imminent, and he gave the order accordingly.
The boatswain, in his haste to execute the order, and overestimating the
amount of chain in the locker, permitted all of it to run overboard. We
were in