CHAPTER VII 



Bradley's Account of the Cook Expedition 



NEVER did any great human expedition set out more modestly 

 or with less blare of trumpets and rattle of drums than that 

 which was headed by Frederick A. Cook and John R. Brad- 

 ley, and which left Gloucester for the polar regions in the summer of 

 1907. There was nothing from which the general public could judge 

 that anything more was intended than a fair-weather excursion to 

 the Arctic seas, with a Rooseveltian inclination to make havoc among 

 the big game of those icy waters. If Dr. Cook had it in mind at 

 that time to make a dash for the Pole, he kept it from public notice, 

 and among the polar expeditions chronicled for that year nothing 

 was said of this, the most momentous of them all. Yet there were 

 some who had reason to be better informed, for Dr. Cook had sought 

 aid elsewhere for a polar trip before Mr. Bradley became his patron. 



Mr. Bradley, an explorer and big game hunter, said nothing 

 of any ulterior purpose. He was, to all appearance, only concerned 

 with the shooting of walrus and polar bears. Yet, as now appears, 

 the great expedition was already mapped out in the minds of these 

 co-conspirators, as one may judge from the supplies taken with them 

 on their ship. These went vastly beyond the requirements of a 

 hunting excursion and covered every essential needed in a search 

 for the Pole. 



Everything about the expedition was kept so quiet that even 

 the captain of the ship that bore them north did not know its pur- 

 pose, though he shrewdly suspected that something more than a 

 shooting and fishing trip was in prospect, from the variety and 

 character of the supplies. 



