A few days later Etah, the place where her father had built his winter house, was sighted, and AH-NI-GHI´-TO thought that in a few hours she would be in his arms; but she was to be disappointed, for before the ship reached the inlet AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S mother saw that the dear old stars and stripes were not flying from the little red house, and told her this was a sure sign that father was not there.

As soon as the ship’s anchor was down a boat full of Eskimos came off from the shore and they said that Peary had not yet returned, but he had sent letters which were in his house on shore. Captain Sam jumped into the boat and in a short time brought letters from AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father, in which he told the Captain what he wanted done at Etah and that he wished the ship to come on to Fort Conger where he would meet it.

Now Etah is on the east shore of Smith Sound and Fort Conger, the place where AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father hoped to meet his vessel, is on the west side and nearly three hundred miles farther north. The ice here was very thick and only small lakes of water were to be seen through it, in the direction in which the ship must go.

Both Captain Sam and AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S mother felt that there was little chance of getting to Fort Conger in their small ship. Before leaving Etah the Captain must get hundreds of tins of canned goods, barrels of flour, cases of sugar, rice, biscuit, oatmeal, etc., etc., on board to take with them. These had all been piled near the beach by AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father, ready to be put on the ship as soon as she came.

This took more than twenty-four hours and during this time AH-NI-GHI´-TO was ashore as much as possible meeting some of her old Eskimo friends and getting acquainted with others. That night she wrote in her diary:

“August 20, 1900.—Ashore all day. Took a look at father’s house. It is very empty and very small. I also looked into the tents of the Eskimos. They are dirty places. Am so sorry not to find more children here. Only a boy nine or ten years old and a baby. They are going on the ship with us, so I guess I will have a good time. The ‘grown-ups’ thought it was very funny to see me jump rope with the ‘Bosun,’ and also to see me swing. They helped me pick flowers, which I have just finished pressing, and they took me to the glacier which mother says is a river of ice that flows down the mountain-side toward the sea just as if it were water, only it moves very slowly; not more than a few feet in a year. They tried to tell me about my father, but I did not understand them very well. I gave one of the women a white cup and she was very proud to have it. Early in the morning we hope to get away from here and take with us five grown Eskimos and two children. I wonder will we meet father soon.”

Poor little AH-NI-GHI´-TO thought that in a few hours at most the ship would cross Smith Sound and reach her first landing-place on the opposite shore, Cape Sabine, only thirty miles away, where a depot of supplies and coal would be landed for the use of those on board the “Windward” in case she should be crushed in the ice, while trying to get north, and her people forced to return to the shore in boats. But it took eight long days to reach this place, and during all of this time there was hardly a moment when the ship was not in danger.

Sometimes the great sheets of ice would hold the “Windward” in their grasp and not allow her to move an inch. Then the current would take her, together with the ice, and drift the whole southward. In this way the ship was often farther south at the end of the day than she was when she started to steam north a few hours before. At these times when the “Windward” was drifting she was perfectly motionless and AH-NI-GHI´-TO, together with Percy and some of the Eskimos, would climb over the side of the ship onto the Hoes and there they would play and slide on the smooth ice; and once Captain Sam lashed two Norwegian skates called “Ski” together, and she coasted down the slopes of the ice hummocks. This was great sport and helped pass the time.

There were other times that were not so pleasant when the heavy fields of ice would crush against the ship so fiercely that pieces would break off and pile up against her sides till some of them fell upon the deck, and the ship would groan and tremble with the pressure like a person in pain. At times the ship would force her way between mountains of ice so high that the boats hanging at the davits had to be hauled in to keep them from being smashed, and all the seamen climbed out and chopped away the overhanging pinnacles as fast as possible so that the rigging would not be cut or torn away.

At last, after eight weary days in the ice, the little harbour was reached. Here a family of Eskimos had been watching the ship during the last three days, fearing all the time that she would be crushed and sink. Now there was great rejoicing, for the Eskimos on the ship had not seen this family since early Spring, and all were eager to gossip.

This family consisted of a man, Accom-moding-wah, his wife, Ah-we-a, a son of seven years, Ne-ah-kwa, and a daughter of twelve, Ach-ah-ting-wah. The boy, though some months older than AH-NI-GHI´-TO, was still a perfect baby; his mother nursing him like an infant; but the girl was a playmate for AH-NI-GHI´-TO and they soon became friends.