320 THE NORTH POLE 



and myself were nearly exhausted. On the northern 

 voyage he was always willing and ready, whether for 

 taking an observation on deck or stowing cargo in 

 the hold. When the Eskimos came aboard, his good 

 humor, his quiet directness, and his physical competence 

 gained him at once their friendship and respect. From 

 the very first he was able to manage these odd people 

 with uncommon success. 



Later, when face to face with the stern problems 

 of life and work in the arctic regions, he met them 

 quietly, uncomplainingly, and with a steady, level 

 persistence that could have but one result, and I soon 

 came to know Ross Marvin as a man who would accom- 

 plish the task assigned to him, whatever it might be. 

 The tidal and meteorological observations of the 

 expedition were his particular charge, while, during 

 the long dark winter night, his mathematical train- 

 ing enabled him to be of great assistance in working 

 out problems of march formation, transportation and 

 supplies, and arrangements of the supporting parties. 

 In the spring sledge campaign of 1906 he commanded 

 a separate division. When the great storm swept 

 the polar sea and scattered my parties hopelessly in a 

 chaos of shattered ice, Marvin's division, like my own 

 farther north, was driven eastward and came down upon 

 the Greenland coast, whence he brought his men 

 safely back to the ship. From this expedition he 

 returned trained in arctic details and thoroughly 

 conversant with the underlying principles of all suc- 

 cessful work in northern regions, so that when he went 

 north with us in 1908, he went as a veteran who could 

 absolutely be depended upon in an emergency. 



