BACK TO LAND AGAIN 315 



The beautiful weather which had accompanied 

 us for several days still continued on the next day. 

 It was really a surprising stretch of splendid weather. 

 We marched six hours, then stopped for luncheon, 

 and then drilled along for six hours more. Repeatedly 

 we passed fresh tracks of bear and hare, together with 

 numerous fox tracks. Save for these, the march was 

 uneventful, with the exception of two narrow leads 

 which we crossed over thin young ice. All that day 

 the sun was hot and blinding to an almost intolerable 

 degree. It would have been practically impossible to 

 travel with the sun in our faces, so fierce were its 

 rays. Yet all this day the temperature ranged between 

 18° and 30° below zero. 



The last day's journey before we reached shore 

 began at 5 p.m. in that same brilliant, clear, calm 

 weather. A short distance from camp we encountered 

 an impracticable lead which the captain's trail crossed. 

 In one fruitless attempt to pass it we got one of our 

 teams in the water. Ultimately the lead swung to 

 the east, and we found the captain's trail, took it up, 

 and worked around the end of the lead. 



Only a short distance further on we got our first 

 glimpse of the edge of the glacial fringe ahead of us 

 and stopped our march long enough to take some 

 photographs. Before midnight that night the whole 

 party had reached the glacial fringe of Grant Land. 

 We had now left the ice of the polar sea and were 

 practically on terra firma. When the last sledge came 

 to the almost vertical edge of the glacier's fringe I 

 thought my Eskimos had gone crazy. They yelled 

 and called and danced until they fell from utter 



