156 THENORTHPOLE 



three men — who, as I soon learned, had been asleep 

 only an hour or so — emerged from the tents, my 

 sledges and Eskimos were close at my heels. I can 

 see now the bulging eyes of the men, and particularly 

 of young Borup, when they saw the sledge loads of 

 shaggy skins. On the top of the leading sledge was 

 the magnificent snowy pelt of the polar bear, with 

 the head forward; behind this was the deerskin with 

 its wide-antlered head, and more musk-ox heads than 

 they had had time to count. 



"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Borup, when his open- 

 mouthed astonishment would permit of articulation. 



I had no time for visiting, as I wanted to reach 

 the ship on that march; and after a few words left 

 the men to finish their interrupted sleep. It was 

 long after dark when we reached the Roosevelt. We 

 had been absent seven sleeps, had traveled over two 

 hundred miles, had accomplished the exploration of 

 Clements Markham Inlet, had made a rough map of 

 it, and incidentally had obtained magnificent speci- 

 mens of the three great animals of the arctic regions, 

 thus adding a few thousand pounds of fresh meat to 

 our winter supply. So, with a feeling of entire satis- 

 faction, I had a hot bath in my cabin bathroom on 

 the Roosevelt, and then turned in to my bunk for a 

 long and refreshing sleep. 



Throughout the month of October the work of 

 transporting supplies and of hunting went on. The 

 captain made two round trips from the ship to Cape 

 Columbia; but he was working backward and forward 

 all the time along the route. In the course of this 

 work he obtained four musk-oxen. 



