CHAPTER XXIII 



OFF ACROSS THE FROZEN SEA AT LAST 



THE work of the expedition, to which all the 

 former months of detail were merely pre- 

 liminary, began with Bartlett's departure 

 from the Roosevelt on the 15th of February for the final 

 sledge journey toward the Pole. The preceding 

 summer we had driven the ship through the almost 

 solid ice of the channels lying between Etah and Cape 

 Sheridan; we had hunted through the long twilight of 

 the autumn to supply ourselves with meat; we had 

 lived through the black and melancholy months-long 

 arctic night, sustaining our spirits with the hope of 

 final success when the returning light should enable 

 us to attack the problem of our passage across the ice 

 of the polar sea. Now these things were all behind 

 us, and the final work was to begin. 



It was ten o'clock on the morning of February 22d — 

 Washington's Birthday — when I finally got away from 

 the ship and started on the journey toward the Pole. 

 This was one day earlier than I had left the ship three 

 years before on the same errand. I had with me two 

 of the younger Eskimos, Arco and Kudlooktoo, two 

 sledges and sixteen dogs. The weather was thick, the 

 air was filled with a light snow, and the temperature 

 was 31° below zero. 



There was now light enough to travel by at ten 



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