CHAPTER XIII 



SHALL WE DARE TO MARCH NORTH? 



THE threatened mutiny had blown over and nothing was wholly 

 lost save a month of priceless time. For, although autumn 

 and mid-winter may well enough be passed in mere prepara- 

 tions, the precious months following January are the time for real 

 work, and one of them was gone. There had also arisen, besides 

 these differences between some of the men and me, bickerings among 

 themselves that died down slowly. Old friendships were broken and 

 wounds made that to this day remain unhealed. 



The causes of the difficulty were partly genuine differences of 

 opinion and partly personal jealousies. The variance in opinion we 

 have explained, the jealousies are gradually being forgotten and have 

 no place in this book. 



When it had been decided that no active opposition would be 

 made to my trip north over the ice, there came the question of 

 whom I could get to go with me on the advance section of the trip. 

 Of those who had volunteered the previous evening to follow orders 

 (which really included all the men who could reasonably have been 

 considered as material for the work) , the majority were either physi- 

 cally ill-adapted for so protracted and serious an adventure, or else 

 so badly needed ashore in connection with the operation of one of the 

 ships or with helping in scientific work that they were not eligible. 

 For an undertaking so serious as most people considered ours 

 to be, no man is suitable unless he volunteers freely and has a 

 degree of faith in the practicability of what is being attempted. 

 Accordingly, as a preliminary to asking for volunteers, I went over 

 the whole situation discussing every argument for and against. 

 This was in conversations with individuals, now trying to get them 

 to change their minds, now to stick to previous decisions. But 

 for simplicity's sake I shall present the case here as I had presented 

 it earlier in the year when first I attempted to get the men of the 

 Alaska and Sachs interested in our geographic program. 



It was our greatest loss when the Karluk drifted off, that we 

 lost with her several ambitious men whose romantic dispositions 



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