I50 NEAREST THE POLE 



minute of endurance is reached. My Mascart Inlet 

 men came back unsuccessful, but the two hare-hunters 

 brought in six, and this made things look somewhat 

 brighter. As can readily be understood, however, 

 the addition of four starving men to my party of eight 

 half-famished ones in no way lightened my responsibili- 

 ties. One thing was in my favour. The sledge journey 

 along this coast in 1900 had shown me the places where 

 the musk-oxen which must be our salvation would 

 most likely be found, and leaving Cape Neumeyer, 

 I led the trail past the end of Ellison Island, and thence 

 through the channel between Britannia Island and 

 Nares Land, in order to examine the coast from Nares 

 Land to Cape May. 



