|THE Boomerang reporter, sent ont to find the North Pole, eighteen
months ago, has just been heard from. An exploring party recently found
portions of his remains in latitude 4-11-44, longitude sou'est by sou'
from the pole, and near the remains the following fragment of a diary:
July 1,1881.--Have just been out searching for a sunstroke and signs of
a thaw. Saw nothing but ice floe and snow as far as the eye could reach.
Think we will have snow this evening unless the wind changes.
July 2.--Spent the forenoon exploring to the northwest for right of way
for a new equatorial and North Pole railroad that I think would be of
immense value to commerce. The grade is easy, and the expense would be
slight. Ate my last dog to-day. Had intended him for the 4th, but got
too hungry, and ate him raw with vinegar; I wish I was at home eating
Boomerang paste.
July 3.--We had quite a frost last night, and it looks this morning as
though the corn and small fruits must have suffered. It is now two weeks
since the last of the crew died and left me alone. Ate the leather
ends of my suspenders to-day for dinner. I did not need the suspenders,
anyway, for by tightening up my pants I find they will stay on all
right, and I don't look for any ladies to call, so that even if my pants
came off by some oversight or other, nobody would be shocked.
July 4.--Saved up some tar roofing and a bottle of mucilage for my
Fourth of July dinner, and gorged myself to-day. The exercises were very
poorly attended and the celebration rather a failure. It is clouding up
in the west, and I'm afraid we're going to have snow. Seems to me we're
having an all-fired late spring here this year.
July 5.--Didn't drink a drop yesterday. It was the quietest Fourth I
ever put in. I never felt so little remorse over the way I celebrated as
I do to-day. I didn't do a thing yesterday that I was ashamed of except
to eat the remainder of a box of shoe blacking for supper. To-day I ate
my last boot-heel, stewed. Looks as though we might have a hard winter.
July 6.--Feel a little apprehension about something to eat. My credit
is all right here, but there is no competition, and prices are therefore
very high. Ice, however, is still firm. This would be a good ice-cream
country if there were any demand, but the country is so sparsely settled
that a man feels as lonesome here as a green-backer at a presidential
election. Ate a pound of cotton waste soaked in machine oil, to-day.
There is nothing left for to-morrow but ice-water and an old pocket-book
for dinner. Looks as though we might have snow.
July 7.--This is a good, cool place to spend the summer if provisions
were more plenty. I am wearing a seal-skin undershirt with three woolen
overshirts and two bear-skin vests, to-day, and when the dew begins to
fall, I have to put on my buffalo ulster to keep off the night air.
I wish I was home. It seems pretty lonesome here since the other boys
died. I do not know what I will get for dinner to-morrow, unless the
neighbors bring in something. A big bear is coming down the hatchway, as
I write. I wish I could eat him. It would be the first square meal for
two months. It is, however, a little mixed whether I will eat him or he
eat me. It will be a cold day for me if he----------
Here the diary breaks off abruptly, and from the chewed up appearance of
the book, we are led to entertain a horrible fear as to his safety.
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