ling Juet's insubordination--objected so
strongly to Greely's regulations that he gave in his resignation
and tried, unsuccessfully, to overtake the "Proteus" and go home
in her. Being returned to Fort Conger, he was not restored to his
rank, and remained--as Juet remained after being superseded--a
malcontent.

One of the commentators on the expedition thus has summarized the
conditions of that dreadful winter of 1883-84: "It was now
October, and the situation of the explorers was becoming desperate,
but the bickerings seem to have increased with their peril. As the
weary days of starvation and death wore on, nearly every member of
the party developed a grievance. Israel was reprimanded by Greely
for falsely accusing Brainard of unfairness in the distribution of
articles. Bender annoyed the whole camp by his complaints regarding
his bed-clothes; Pavy and Henry accused Fredericks, the cook, of
not giving them their fair share of food; and Pavy and Kislingbury
had a quarrel that barely stopped short of blows. Then Jewell was
accused of selecting the heaviest dishes of those issued.... Bender
and Schneider had a fist fight in their sleeping bag; and on one
occasion Bender was so violent that a general mutiny was imminent,
and Greely says in his written record:

'If I could have got Long's gun I would have killed him.' Bender
brutally treated Ellison, who was very weak; and Schneider abused
Whistler as he was dying--the second occurrence of the kind.... The
thefts of food by Henry, and his execution, formed a culmination to
the dissensions, though it did not entirely stop them. Never was
there a more terrible example of the demoralizing effects of the
conditions of Arctic life and privations upon men who in other
circumstances were able to dwell at peace with their fellows."

[Illustration: BARENTZ'S SHIP IN THE ICE.
FROM DE VEER. DRIE SEYLAGIEN, AMSTERDAM, 1605]

Out of those conditions came like results aboard Hudson's ship:
discontent developing into insubordination; hatred of the
commander; hatred of each other; petty squabblings leading on to
tragedies--as minor ills were magnified into catastrophes and
little injuries into deadly wrongs. Strictly in keeping with the
mean traditions of the Arctic is the fact that the point of
departure of the final mutiny was a wrangle that arose over the
ownership of "a gray cloth gowne."

Prickett records: "About the middle of this moneth of November dyed
John Williams our Gu