McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-05-28

begged piteously to be helped again pro-
testing that it could do them no harm.
Colwell was wisely deaf to their en-
treaties and threw away the can. When
Greedy found that he was refused. he
took out can of the boiled sealskin,
which had been carefully husbanded,
and which he said, he had right to eat
as it was his own. This was taken away
from him, but while Colwell was at work
trying to raise the tent, some one got
the half emptied can of pemmican, and
by the time it was discovered the party
had scooped out and eaten its contents.
The weaker ones were like children
petulant, rambling and fitful in their
talk, absent and sometimes q little in
coherent. While they were waiting for
the return of the boat, Colwell and the
ice masters did their best to cheer them
up by telling them that relief was at
hand, and that the others would soon
arrive. They could not realize it and
refused to believe it. So they were hui
mored, and by way of TAX
ing up their thoughts. Colwell
told them something that had been go
ing on in the world during their three
years of exile Curiously enough, there
was much that they knew already. 1t
turned out that among the stores from
the Proteus were two boxes of lemons,
and the fruit had been wrapped up in
scraps of English newspapers those
lemons which your dear wife put up for
u.s." as one of them said to Colwell, in a
moment of wandering fancy. The lat
ter could only discharge the imaginary
obligation to an imaginary person, but
the impression had already faded.
Meanwhile the Bear had arrived and
Lowe had gone off in the cutter, taking
with him Sergeant Long. In reply to
questions, Long, In husky voice. told
his story-that all were dead except
Greedy and five others, who were on
shore in ''sore distress-sore Distress"
that they had had hard winter, and
"the wonder was how in Gods name
they had pulled Through" No words
can describe the pathos of this mans
broken and enfeebled utterance rs he
said over and over "a hard
winter-a hard winter, and the officers
who were gathered about him in the
ward room felt an emotion which most
of them were at little pains to conceal.
The first sign of the relief expedition
which had reached the camp was the
sound from the steam whistle of the
Thetis, recalling the shore parties at
Payer harbor. Lieutenant Greedy,
lying on the ground in his tent, had
heard it, as it was borne family over
the neck of land, but the others had
not noticed it in the roaring wind, and
when he had told them he had heard a
steamers whistle, they thought it only
the impression of his disturbed imagina-
ton. Long crawled out of the tent and
bracing himself against the wind, strug-I
eled up to the ridge; but nothing could
be seen but the rocky coast and the ice
foot and the chopping sea, with the
pack stretching off in the distance. Iii
was bitter disappointment. Long,
went back disheartened, but after watt
ing uneasily little while longer, he
mounted the ridge a second time. Still
there was nothing to be seen but the
same hopeless prospect, and he was
about to return again when the CUTTER
came into view around the point above.
With most of them the rescue hardly
made revulsion of feeling. Except
the commander, they took it as matter
of course. There was a little, very
little excitement, and they were per-.
haps more than ordinarily talkative,
but in general they did not seem to rise
or fall much above or below the level of
ordinary good spirits. Probably of
tough fibre to begin with, their year
of privation and hopelessness had
blunted or deadened their recollection
of the world, as they had known it, and
the feelings to which the recollection
gave rise. Notwithstanding his inter-
view with Colwell, Greely's first ques-
ton when the party from the Bear
came up, whether they were not
Englishmen? and upon being told that
they were his countrymen, he said,
II am so glad to see you"