The White Betrayal.

Translation of Eisland, a romanticized juvenile novel about the Greely expedition, concentrating on the last year, what he calls “the greatest tragedy in the annals of the Arctic” (pace Franklin, etc).

p. 85: In the interminable nights at Fort Conger there had been little to do but to gossip, read, and keep up a diary. The few books had soon been read and re-read…. [Hard to imagine where the author picked that up—there were several thousand books available at Fort Conger.]