108 THE NORTH POLE 



some game; but before they reached the shore there 

 was so much movement in the adjacent floes that I 

 considered their journey too hazardous for inexperi- 

 enced men. A recall was sounded with the ship's 

 whistle, and they started back over the now moving 

 floes. Their movements were impeded by their guns, 

 but fortunately they carried boat hooks, without 

 which they could never have made their way back. 



Using the boat hooks as vaulting poles, they leaped 

 from one floe to another, when the leads were not too 

 wide. When the open water was impassable in that 

 way, they crossed it on small floating pieces of ice, 

 using their hooks to push and pull themselves along. 

 First the doctor slipped on the edge of a floe, and 

 went into the icy water to the waist, but he was quickly 

 hauled up by Borup. Then Borup slipped and went 

 in to the waist, but he was out again as quickly. 



Meanwhile the ice had separated about the Roose- 

 velt, leaving a wide lane of water between her and the 

 men; but by running the ship against one of the larger 

 floes, we enabled them to clamber aboard. They lost 

 no time in exchanging their wet garments for dry ones, 

 and in a few minutes they were all laughing and re- 

 counting their exploits to an interested — and pos- 

 sibly amused — group of listeners. 



A man who could not laugh at a wetting or take as 

 a matter of course a dangerous passage over moving 

 ice, would not be a man for a serious arctic expedition. 

 It was with a feeling of intense satisfaction that I 

 watched these three men, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr. 

 Goodsell, my arctic "tenderfeet," as I called them, 

 proving the mettle of which they were made. 



