UP TO CAPE YORK 41 



Should I succeed? Should I return? Success 

 in the attainment of 90° North would not inevitably 

 carry with it the safe return. We had learned that 

 on recrossing the "big lead" in 1906. In the Arctic 

 the chances are always against the explorer. The 

 inscrutable guardians of the secret appear to have a 

 well-nigh inexhaustible reserve of trump cards to play 

 against the intruder who insists upon dropping into 

 the game. The life is a dog's life, but the work is a 

 man's work. 



As we steamed northward from Cape York, on 

 the first day of August, 1908, I felt that I was now in 

 truth face to face with the final struggle. Everything 

 in my life appeared to have led up to this day. All 

 my years of work and all my former expeditions were 

 merely preparations for this last and supreme effort. 

 It has been said that well-directed labor toward a 

 given end is an excellent kind of prayer for its attain- 

 ment. If that be so, then prayer has been my portion 

 for many years. Through all the seasons of disappoint- 

 ment and defeat I had never ceased to believe that 

 the great white mystery of the North must eventually 

 succumb to the insistence of human experience and 

 will, and, standing there with my back to the world 

 and my face toward that mystery, I believed that I 

 should win in spite of all the powers of darkness and 

 of desolation. 



