144 NEAREST THE POLE 



scramble to get back. We camped on a piece of big 

 floe bounded on one side by the steadily widening 

 lead, and on the other three by rafters of Alpine char- 

 acter. Here we remained, drifting steadily eastward, 

 watching the lead slowly widen, as it had done on the 

 upward march. 



On the upward march, when we were delayed at 

 the "big lead," in the brilliant, bitter, March days, 

 and the ice on the distant northern side appeared to 

 my eager eyes like the promised land, I had given it 

 the name "The Hudson." Now as we lay in this 

 dismal camp, watching the distant southern ice be- 

 yond which lay the world, all that was near and dear, 

 and perhaps life itself, while on our side was only the 

 wide-stretching ice and possibly a lingering death, 

 there was but one appropriate name for its black 

 waters — "the Styx." 



Each day the number of my dogs dwindled and 

 sledges were broken up to cook those of the animals 

 that we ate ourselves. But here let me say that 

 personally I have no objection whatever to dog, 

 if only there is enough of it. Serious Arctic work 

 quickly brings a man to consider quantity only in 

 connection with the food question. One day leads 

 formed entirely around the ice on which we were, mak- 

 ing it an island of two or three miles' diameter. 



Later, two Eskimo scouts whom I had sent east 

 to reconnoitre the lead came hurrying back breath- 

 less, with the report that a few miles from camp 

 there was a film of young ice extending clear across 

 the lead — now something over two miles wide — which 

 they thought might support us on snowshoes. No 



