DR. COOK'S OWN STORY 63 



again we went, taking observations every few seconds. Finally we stopped. 

 I believed I had reached the goal. Again, almost tremblingly, I took an ob- 

 servation. There was no mistake. A series of circular observations around 

 the place where we temporarily halted proved me to be at the point. 



"The North Pole was conquered ! 



"Conquered and in the nick of time, for our provisions even at the most 

 economical calculation could not have lasted us had the northern march taken 

 three days more. Forty-eight hours we remained in the vicinity of the lonely, 

 cheerless spot, the goal of the explorers' ambition for centuries. I rested the 

 men and dogs as much as possible in the dreary, chilly waste. Rest for me 

 was impossible. The knowledge of the final conquest kept me in almost con- 

 stant activity. April 23 I ordered the return. 



"Our return journey, although marked by more hardship than our advance 

 to the North, was nevertheless made lighter by the joy of duty accomplished. 

 Although we were forced to kill several of our dogs for food and finally 

 allowed those still living to run loose at the spot where we crossed the Firth 

 of Devon into Jones Sound, we took our misfortunes more or less cheer- 

 fully and at Cape Sparbo, which we reached in September, we built an under- 

 ground den and remained there until the sunrise of 1909, living on game 

 killed with crude instruments and waiting patiently until the new day could 

 take us back to tell the world of our triumph. 



"February 18 the new start was made for Annootok. April 15 we reached 

 the Greenland shores again. The rest the world knows." 



Mr. Stead adds by way of comment : 



"In surveying Dr. Cook's story it will be well to remember that all the 

 hardships, the hair-breadth escapes, all the famine and the imminent prospects 

 of death occurred not in the rush to the pole but on his return journey, especially 

 in the last six months of his journeying. 



"Public attention has been riveted upon his dash to the pole across the 

 frozen Polar Sea. But that was with him, as with Peary, a comparatively 

 swift, uneventful advance, kept up day after day at the rate of fifteen miles 



daily. 



"If the western drift of ice had not carried him out of reach of the game 

 lands at Herbert Island he would in all probability have been back twelve 

 months earlier. The real hardships of Dr. Cook began not in high, but com- 

 paratively low latitudes. 



"He has a far vivider recollection of the stirring events occurring last 



