14 THE NORTH POLE 



the foremast, and changing the interior arrangements 

 somewhat. The general features of the ship had al- 

 ready proved themselves so well adapted for the pur- 

 pose for which she was intended that no alteration 

 in them was required. 



Experience had taught me how to figure on delays 

 in the North; but the exasperating delays of ship 

 contractors at home had not yet entered into my 

 scheme of reckoning. Contracts for this work on 

 the Roosevelt were signed in the winter, and called 

 for the completion of the ship by July 1, 1907. Re- 

 peated oral promises were added to contractual agree- 

 ments that the work should certainly be done on that 

 date; but, as a matter of fact, the new boilers were 

 not completed and installed until September, thus 

 absolutely negativing any possibility of going north in 

 the summer of 1907. 



The failure of the contractors to live up to their 

 word, with the consequent delay of a year, was a serious 

 blow to me. It meant that I must attack the problem 

 one year older; it placed the initiation of the expe- 

 dition further in the future, with all the possible con- 

 tingencies that might occur within a year; and it meant 

 the bitterness of hope deferred. 



On the day when it became lamentably clear that 

 I positively could not sail north that year, I felt much 

 as I had felt when I had been obliged to turn back 

 from 87° 6', with only the empty bauble "farthest 

 north," instead of the great prize which I had almost 

 strained my life out to achieve. Fortunately I did not 

 know that Fate was even then clenching her fist for 

 yet another and more crushing blow. 



