As the men inventoried their baggage, their concern about Fiala’s preparations began to turn into alarm. “Most of his equipment was useless, or as it has been appropriately termed ‘doodle-dabs,’” Miller wrote to Frank Chapman at the American Museum of Natural History. The rations were an even larger, and more critical, problem than the equipment. When the men pried open several of Fiala’s crates, they were stunned by what they found. “We discovered here whole cases of olive oil, cases of mustard, malted milk, stuffed olives, prunes, applesauce, etc., etc.
