76 SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE PEARY EXPEDITION 



through, c'est fine no matter how worried or put out, to keep that 

 grin that won't come off there, and don't show a sign of fear, as the 

 Eskimos are none too sandy anyhow, and it's up to you to furnish 

 the ginger, steam, and sand to keep them jollied and care free no 

 matter how you feel. GEORGE BORUP/' 



Of equal interest and of value in giving another and different 

 phase of the northern experience is that of Professor MacMillan, as 

 told on the deck of the "Roosevelt" to newspaper men while lying 

 at Battle Harbor, Newfoundland. From the lips of this quiet- 

 spoken, unemotional man from Massachusetts came tales the like of 

 which are rarely told. He stood in the center of a group of corre- 

 spondents on the grease-caked forward deck and as simply as he 

 would recite the taking of a hazard or the toll of mallards in a 

 shooting blind he told of finding relics of men who had given up 

 their lives in pursuit of the aurora's end, and he read selections from 

 the records dead men left behind them in the ice wilderness twenty- 

 five years ago. The correspondents halted in their note-taking and 

 tangled their memoranda because of the spell of his words. 



"Hardships !" he said, in answer to a question, "why, yes, there 

 were some ; but they were forgotten each night after we had turned 

 into snug igloos. The excitement of the whole thing far outweighed 

 the dangers, and all in all, I don't believe you will find a man on the 

 ship who realizes to-day that what we considered just a bully good 

 time was really an event so important that you fellows chase us 

 away up here to get the news of it. If they start to give us any 

 demonstration in New York, we won't know how to take it. Of 

 that I am certain." 



The man who stood with his fur-clad head leaning against the 

 mast and his hands jammed into his pockets found the correspond- 

 ents importunate. They wanted all he had to tell. He shrugged 

 his shoulders good-naturedly and began to speak of remarkable 

 adventures in the light of commonplaces. 



