380 FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH 



stating the conditions in which the Crocker Land Ex- 

 pedition found itself in the far North, and asking for 

 continued efforts for relief, might not be delivered until 

 too late. Hence we decided that, to insure with as 

 much certainty as possible their prompt carriage to 

 America, Doctor Hunt should obtain the best dogs and 

 equipment available and go southward, while I stayed 

 at South Upernavik to await relief after the ice went 

 out and a ship could come to the station. 



February 16th Doctor Hunt left me, on his attempt 

 to get to Holstensborg, where he might catch the Hans 

 Egede, the regular mail- and passenger-steamer plying 

 between Greenland and Denmark during the open 

 season. Because of thin ice, he was forced to go by an 

 entirely new route, directly back over the mountains. 

 The story of his successful journey south is an epic, 

 a record of success over incredible difficulties, and 

 dauntless perseverance in the face of almost insur- 

 mountable obstacles. 



My courage sank lower than it had been before in 

 the Northland when he bade me good-by and sledged 

 away. After he left me I was quite alone, with no 

 certainty that my enforced stay in Greenland might not 

 be prolonged several years; no certainty that I might 

 not be dependent upon foreign hospitality, free and 

 friendly though it be, for an indefinite time. I longed to 

 be home again on native shores, to see my friends again. 



For a long time I watched him, until at last his sledges 

 turned out of sight around a little point across the fjord. 

 Then I turned back to the little sod-walled trading- 

 station with a heart heavy despite the kind and re- 

 assuring words of the factor, to begin a five months' 

 wait for a means of getting home. 



