THE PLAN 9 



construction, strength, lightness, and ease of trac- 

 tion, made the heavy task of the dogs far easier 

 than it would otherwise have been. It may even be 

 that we should have failed had it not been for so simple 

 a thing as an improved form of water boiler which I 

 was fortunate enough to have hit upon. By its aid 

 we were able to melt ice and make tea in ten minutes. 

 On our previous journeys this process had taken an 

 hour. Tea is an imperative necessity on such a driv- 

 ing journey, and this little invention saved one and 

 one-half hours in each day while we were struggling 

 toward the Pole on that journey when time was the 

 very essence of success. 



Success crowned the work, it is true, but, for all 

 that, it is a genuine pleasure to reflect that even had 

 we failed, I should have had nothing to reproach 

 myself with in the way of neglect. Every possible 

 contingency that years of experience had taught me 

 to expect was provided for, every weak spot guarded, 

 every precaution taken. I had spent a quarter of a 

 century playing the Arctic game. I was fifty-three 

 years old, an age beyond which, perhaps, with the one 

 exception of Sir John Franklin, no man had ever 

 attempted to prosecute work in the Arctic regions. 

 I was a little past the zenith of my strength, a little 

 lacking, perhaps, in the exuberant elasticity and elan 

 of more youthful years, a little past the time when most 

 men begin to leave the strenuous things to the younger 

 generation; but these drawbacks were fully balanced 

 perhaps by a trained and hardened endurance, a per- 

 fect knowledge of myself, and of how to conserve my 

 strength. I knew it was my last game upon the great 



