142 NEAREST THE POLE 



if he were an Eskimo dog. At Storm Camp we were 

 held twenty-four hours by the continuance of the gale, 

 the ice groaning and grinding in the familiar way, 

 then resumed our march with the number of my dogs 

 still further reduced. From here I set a "bee line" 

 course for the nearest part of the Greenland coast. 

 I alone of the party knew how far we had drifted and 

 that our salvation now lay in the direction of the 

 Greenland coast and its musk-oxen. My Eskimos 

 thought we were coming down on the Grant Land 

 coast which we had left, in fact, by some strange 

 perversion of ideas, they were all fixed in their belief 

 that we had been drifting westward. The only reason 

 for this was that the ice on the northern side of the 

 "big lead" had (so they said) before I joined them at 

 the lead, been drifting pronouncedly westward. 



When we reached the region where my two Eskimos 

 had been stopped in their attempt to bring up the 

 cache from the "big lead," I was not surprised at the 

 expressions of amazement and almost horror with 

 which they had returned to me. There was no open 

 water now, but the chaos of shattered and upheaved 

 ice which stretched away to the southward was in- 

 describable. Through this our progress was naturally 

 slow, but one grim and exhausting march, during 

 which the pickaxes were constantly in use, carried us 

 through. 



In the third march from Storm Camp we crossed 

 the scar of the " big lead." By scar I mean where the 

 edges of the " big lead " had been driven together and 

 had frozen fast. There was no mistaking it, and I 

 foolishly allowed myself to be encouraged by the 



