224 THENORTHPOLE 



The captain's third camp was reached before dark 

 that night. All day long the wind kept us company, 

 and we could see by the water clouds all about us that 

 the leads were open here and there in every direction. 

 Fortunately none of them immediately crossed our 

 trail, and the going was much as on the previous day. 



During this march we saw, above the summits of the 

 great land mountains which were still visible to the south 

 of us, a naming blade of yellow light which reached 

 half way to the zenith — in other words, after nearly 

 five months, we could almost see the sun again as he 

 skimmed along just under the southern horizon. Only 

 a day or two more, and his light would shine directly 

 upon us. The feeling of the arctic traveler for the 

 returning sun after the long darkness is a feeling hard to 

 interpret to those who are accustomed to seeing the sun 

 every morning. 



On the following day, March 4, the weather changed. 

 The sky was overcast with clouds, the wind had swung 

 completely around to the west during the night, there 

 were occasional squalls of light snow, and the thermome- 

 ter had risen to only 9° below zero. This temperature, 

 after that of the minus fifties, in which we had been 

 traveling, seemed almost oppressively warm. The 

 leads were even more numerous than the day before, 

 and their presence was clearly outlined by the heavy 

 black clouds. A mile or two east of us there was a lead 

 stretching far to the north and directly parallel with our 

 course, which did not cause us any apprehension. But 

 a broad and ominous band of black extending far to the 

 east and west across our course and apparently ten or 

 fifteen miles to the north of us, gave me serious concern. 



