BACK TO LAND AGAIN 317 



one in our party who was not delighted to have passed 

 the treacherous lead and those wide expanses of young 

 thin ice where a gale would have put an open sea 

 between us and the land and rendered our safe return 

 hazardous, to say the least. 



In all probability no member of that little party 

 will ever forget our sleep at Cape Columbia. We 

 slept gloriously for practically two days, our brief 

 waking intervals being occupied exclusively with 

 eating and with drying our clothes. 



Then for the ship. Our dogs, like ourselves, had 

 not been hungry when we arrived, but simply lifeless 

 with fatigue. They were different animals now, and 

 the better ones among them stepped out with tightly 

 curled tails and uplifted heads, their iron legs treading 

 the snow with piston-like regularity and their black 

 muzzles every now and then sniffing the welcome scent 

 of the land. 



We reached Cape Hecla in one march of forty-five 

 miles and the Roosevelt in another of equal length. 

 My heart thrilled as, rounding the point of the cape, 

 I saw the little black ship lying there in its icy berth 

 with sturdy nose pointing straight to the Pole. 



And I thought of that other time three years 

 before when, dragging our gaunt bodies round Cape 

 Rawson on our way from the Greenland coast, I 

 thought the Roosevelt's slender spars piercing the bril- 

 liant arctic sunlight as fair a sight as ever I had seen. 

 As we approached the ship I saw Bartlett going over 

 the rail. He came out along the ice-foot to meet me, 

 and something in his face told me he had bad news 

 even before he spoke. 



