274 THE NORTH POLE 



cooker. It was a change for them from the pemmican 

 diet. It was fresh meat, it was hot, and they seemed 

 thoroughly to enjoy it. But though I remembered 

 many times when from sheer starvation I had been glad 

 to eat dog meat raw, I did not feel inclined to join in 

 the feast of my dusky friends. 



A little after midnight, on the morning of April 2, 

 after a few hours of sound, warm, and refreshing 

 sleep, and a hearty breakfast, I started to lift the trail 

 to the north, leaving the others to pack, hitch up, 

 and follow. As I climbed the pressure ridge back of 

 our igloo, I took up another hole in my belt, the third 

 since I left the land — thirty-two days before. Every 

 man and dog of us was as lean and flat-bellied as a 

 board, and as hard. 



Up to this time I had intentionally kept in the 

 rear, to straighten out any little hitch or to encourage 

 a man with a broken sledge, and to see that everything 

 was in good marching order. Now I took my proper 

 place in the lead. Though I held myself in check, 

 I felt the keenest exhilaration, and even exultation, as 

 I climbed over the pressure ridge and breasted the 

 keen air sweeping over the mighty ice, pure and straight 

 from the Pole itself. 



These feelings were not in any way dampened when 

 I plunged off the pressure ridge into water mid-thigh 

 deep, where the pressure had forced down the edge of 

 the floe north of us and had allowed the water to flow 

 in under the surface snow. My boots and trousers 

 were tight, so that no water could get inside, and as 

 the water froze on the fur of my trousers I scraped it 

 off with the blade of the ice lance which I carried, and 



