80 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH [April 



fact, I think he would rather have dropped himself than 

 have his team give out. Our total distance at the end 

 of this march was estimated to be seventy -eight miles. 

 Looking back toward the southwest, nothing could be 

 seen but a small, dark mass which we judged might be 

 Cape Colgate, or some higher point in Grant Land. 



April 21st was a beautiful day; all mist was gone and 

 the clear blue of the sky extended down to the very 

 horizon. Green was no sooner out of the igloo than he 

 came running back, calling in through the door, "We 

 have it!" Following Green, we ran to the top of the 

 highest mound. There could be no doubt about it. 

 Great heavens! what a land! Hills, valleys, snow- 

 capped peaks extending through at least one hundred 

 and twenty degrees of the horizon. I turned to Pee-a- 

 wah-to anxiously and asked him toward which point 

 we had better lay our course. After critically examin- 

 ing the supposed landfall for a few minutes, he as- 

 tounded me by replying that he thought it was poo-jok 

 (mist). E-took-a-shoo offered no encouragement, say- 

 ing, "Perhaps it is." Green was still convinced that it 

 must be land. At any rate, it was worth watching. 

 As we proceeded the landscape gradually changed its 

 appearance and varied in extent with the swinging 

 around of the sun; finally at night it disappeared alto- 

 gether. As we drank our hot tea and gnawed the 

 pemmican, we did a good deal of thinking. Could Peary 

 with all nis experience have been mistaken.'^ Was this 

 mirage which had deceived us the very thing which 

 had deceived him eight years before .^^ If he did see 

 Crocker Land, then it was considerably more than 120 

 miles away, for we were now at least 100 miles from 

 shore, with nothing in sight. 



