282 THE NORTH POLE 



began to eliminate and feed them to the others, as 

 it became necessary. 



We stopped for only a short sleep, and early in the 

 evening of the same day, the 4th, we struck on again. 

 The temperature was then minus 35°, the going was the 

 same, but the sledges always haul more easily when 

 the temperature rises, and the dogs were on the trot 

 much of the time. Toward the end of the march we 

 came upon a lead running north and south, and as 

 the young ice was thick enough to support the teams, 

 we traveled on it for two hours, the dogs gallop- 

 ing along and reeling off the miles in a way that 

 delighted my heart. The light air which had blown 

 from the south during the first few hours of the 

 march veered to the east and grew keener as the hours 

 wore on. 



I had not dared to hope for such progress as we 

 were making. Still the biting cold would have been 

 impossible to face by anyone not fortified by an inflex- 

 ible purpose. The bitter wind burned our faces so 

 that they cracked, and long after we got into camp each 

 day they pained us so that we could hardly go to sleep. 

 The Eskimos complained much, and at every camp 

 fixed their fur clothing about their faces, waists, knees, 

 and wrists. They also complained of their noses, 

 which I had never known them to do before. The air 

 was as keen and bitter as frozen steel. 



At the next camp I had another of the dogs killed. 

 It was now exactly six weeks since we left the Roose- 

 velt, and I felt as if the goal were in sight. I intended 

 the next day, weather and ice permitting, to make a 

 long march, "boil the kettle" midway, and then go 



