[Illustration:  AN ARCTIC HOUSE]

But that comparative plenty and good cheer did not last long.  In a few weeks the unhappy men, or such as still clung to life, were living on a few shrimps, pieces of sealskin boots, lichens, and even more offensive food.  The shortening of the ration, and the resulting hunger, broke down the moral sense of some, and by one device or another, food was stolen.  Only two or three were guilty of this crime—­an execrable one in such an emergency—­and one of these, Private Henry, was shot by order of Lieutenant Greely toward the end of the winter.  Even before Christmas, casualties which would have been avoided, had the party been well-nourished and strong, began.  Ellison, in making a gallant dash for the cache at Isabella, was overcome by cold and fatigue, and froze both his hands and feet so that in time they dropped off.  Only the tender care of Frederick, who was with him, and the swift rush of Lockwood and Brainard to his aid, saved him from death.  It tells a fine story of the unselfish devotion of the men, that this poor wreck, maimed and helpless, so that he had to be fed, and incapable of performing one act in his own service, should have been nursed throughout the winter, fed with double portions, and actually saved living until the rescue party arrived, while many of those who cared for him yielded up their lives.  The first to die was Cross, of scurvy and starvation, and he was buried in a shallow grave near the hut, all hands save Ellison turning out to honor his memory.  Though the others clung to life with amazing tenacity, illness began to make inroads upon them, the gallant Lockwood, for example, spending weeks in Greely’s sleeping bag, his mind wandering, his body utterly exhausted.  But it was April before the second death occurred—­one of the Esquimaux.  “Action of water on the heart caused by insufficient nutrition,” was the doctor’s verdict—­in a word, but a word all dreaded to hear, starvation.

Thereafter the men went fast.  In a day or two Christiansen, an Esquimau, died.  Rice, the sharer of his sleeping bag, was forced to spend a night enveloped in a bag with the dead body.  The next day he started on a sledging trip to seek some beef cached by the English years earlier.  Before the errand was completed, he, too, died, freezing to death in the arms of his companion, Frederick, who held him tenderly until the last, and stripped himself to the shirtsleeves in the icy blast, to warm his dying comrade.  Then Lockwood died—­the hero of the Farthest North; then Jewell.  Jens, the untiring Esquimau hunter, was drowned, his kayak being cut by the sharp edge of a piece of ice.  Ellis, Whisler, Israel, the astronomer, and Dr. Pavy, the surgeon, one by one, passed away.