1914] IN SEARCH OF CROCKER LAND 75 



and eventually recover. Rest I could not give them so 

 late in the year. 



As we headed out toward the northwest over a hard, 

 rolling surface of blue ice I felt that our work had really 

 begun; the 500 miles behind were but the path leading 

 up to our field of work. We were going into the un- 

 known, toward that point where land had been put 

 down with a question mark, where Doctor Harris said it 

 might exist, where well-known geologists declared that it 

 couldn't exist, and where Peary claimed that it did exist. 



The end of the first march saw us encamped at the 

 base of a small pressure ridge about fourteen miles from 

 land. With E-took-a-shoo and Pee-a-wah-to I mounted 

 the highest mass of ice to survey the field for the next 

 day. Not a word was spoken for some minutes. There 

 were several pressure ridges in sight and some rubble 

 ice through which we could easily pick our way. The 

 Eskimos were plainly thinking, and their thoughts were 

 not pleasant ones. With eyes better than mine, they 

 were not only seeing the same things which I saw, but 

 were seeing something more — open water. Wlien their 

 tongues finally began to wag, I caught the familiar 

 words: "Much water," "The sun is high," "Will not 

 freeze," "The ice is moving." As soon as I realized 

 that they were worried over this, I remarked that I 

 was glad to see the ice so good and that it was much 

 better than when we were w^th Peary on the last trip. 

 I slapped E-took-a-shoo on the back, bantered Pee-a- 

 wah-to a bit, and ended by telling them to feed two 

 cans of pemmican to their dogs instead of one. 



The dark lanes of open water visible ahead and 

 those on the horizon, as indicated by a water sky, w^ere 

 evidently opened up by the full moon of April 10th. 



6 



