NORTH POLE OF THE WINDS 



very lame and sore, and it was only very slowly that 

 we made our way over the hundred yards of trail 

 to the tent-house, where for the last half hour or 

 more I had been keeping a big pot of vegetable 

 soup ready for them. On the table nearby lay a 

 pile of caribou steaks ready to put in the frying 

 pan, provided the rescued men should be in a con- 

 dition to attack anything so hearty. They very 

 wisely kept to the soup and even then for a fort- 

 night Cramer suffered from the effects of their 

 starvation of the past fortnight. 



But we must not forget that the world is wait- 

 ing for news of Hassell. The instant the boats 

 were ashore, which occurred at nine fifteen in the 

 evening when it was already very dark, Belknap 

 had flashed the signal, "Hassell Safe". Schneider 

 watching outside the observatory, caught the sig- 

 nal and rushed in to report to Baer sitting at the 

 radio transmitter. In dot and dash code Baer 

 sent out the call, "2 UO, urgent, 2U0, urgent". 

 Dick Hilferty sitting at his instrument in the New 

 York Times annex heard this call of his station 

 and in two minutes from the moment that Hassell 

 had set foot on our shore, the New York Times 

 Radio Department was "standing by" waiting for 

 the rescue story. 



The outlines of this thrilling story I was at this 



276 



