58 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [Mar. 



The withdrawal of these two men with their sixteen 

 dogs reduced the total amount of food which could be 

 transported over the glacier to a dangerous limit. The 

 success of the trip now depended upon our finding game 

 on the other side. Our loads were now so heavy, and 

 the gradient so steep and slippery, that it was only by 

 the very hardest kind of effort and free use of the 

 whip that the dogs could be induced to move at all. 

 The slope was more gentle and the going much better 

 after we had surmounted the first ice, and we were able 

 to reach the summit in a little over two days. Here 

 we built two snow igloos at an altitude of 4,750 feet, 

 with the temperature at fifty below zero. Although 

 the snow was hard and wind-swept, showing the preva- 

 lence of violent winds here in the mountains, we were 

 fortunate in having absolutely calm weather. Green 

 informed me in the evening that Ekblaw had frozen 

 his feet and asked me to look at them. I found the 

 ball of one foot badly blistered and the big toe swollen 

 and waxy in appearance. Naturally Ekblaw was wor- 

 ried, for the Eskimos had told him that it was just like 

 "Peary-akswah's" foot some years ago, when he lost 

 all his toes. I hated to lose such a good man, and de- 

 cided to hold on to him as long as I could, not consider- 

 ing his frost-bite nearly so serious as the natives would 

 have us think. They are mortally afraid of having their 

 feet frost-bitten, nursing them as tenderly as a mother 

 would her youngest child. I have seen tough old Oo- 

 tah, mounted on top of his load, with boot off, at sixty 

 below zero, holding his toes in his warm hand and with 

 a worried look on his face. Frozen cheeks, nose, or 

 ears are of little concern; one can still go on, but when 

 a man's feet are frozen he is through. 



