310 THE NORTH POLE 



We were coming down the North Pole hill in fine 

 shape now and another double march, April 16-17, 

 brought us to our eleventh upward camp at 85° 8', one 

 hundred and twenty-one miles from Cape Columbia. 

 On this march we crossed seven leads, which, with the 

 repeated faulting of the trail, lengthened our march 

 once more to eighteen hours. Sunday, April 18, 

 found us still hurrying along over the trail made 

 by Marvin and Bartlett. They had lost the main 

 trail, but this made little difference to us except as 

 to time. We were able to make longer marches when 

 on the main trail because there we camped in the 

 igloos already built on the upward journey instead 

 of having to build fresh ones for ourselves. This 

 was another eigh teen-hour march. It had a calm and 

 warm beginning, but, so far as I was concerned, an 

 extremely uncomfortable finish. During the day my 

 clothes had become damp with perspiration. Moreover, 

 as our long marches and short sleeps had brought 

 us round to the calendar day, we were facing the sun, 

 and this, with the southwest wind, burned my face so 

 badly that it was little short of agonizing. But I con- 

 soled myself with the reflection that we were now less 

 than a hundred miles from land. I tried to forget my 

 stinging flesh in looking at the land clouds which we 

 could see from this camp. There is no mistaking 

 these clouds, which are permanent and formed of the 

 condensation of the moisture from the land in the upper 

 strata of the atmosphere. To-morrow, we knew, we 

 might even be able to see the land itself. Meantime 

 the dogs had again become utterly lifeless. Three of 

 them had played out entirely. Extra rations were fed 



