THE SHIP AT LAST 433 



drawn very close to each other by a strong bond of 

 human sympathy. I was leaving these savage 

 friends perhaps never to see them again, and this fact 

 tempered the joy of my home-going. 



Lack of coal limited the speed of the Roosevelt to 

 four knots an hour, and it was not until August 

 twenty-third that we entered North Star Bay. I was 

 asleep at the time, and the captain came below to 

 wake me and tell me that a small vessel had been 

 sighted, northward bound, with all sails set. 



I hurried above decks, and presently we learned 

 that the little vessel was the Jeanie, in command of 

 my old friend, Captain Sam Bartlett, of Brigus, New- 

 foundland, with whom I had come north in the Erik 

 the previous year. When Mr. Peary, Captain Rob- 

 ert Bartlett and myself boarded her, we were in- 

 formed by Captain Sam that he was on his way to 

 Etah to bring me back, and that the Jeanie carried 

 fifty tons of coal for the Roosevelt, and best of all, 

 letters and newspapers for all of us. It is worth 

 mentioning that the Jeanie, a Newfoundland fishing- 

 schooner, is one of the smallest vessels that has ever at- 

 tempted to penetrate the farther Arctic. 



The two vessels were some fifteen miles from the 

 anchorage in North Star Bay when they met. I re- 

 mained on the Jeanie, which followed the Roosevelt 

 into the harbor and anchored alongside her. Here 

 with the assistance of twenty Eskimos the coal was 

 soon transferred. 



Mr. Peary called me on board the Roosevelt and 

 kindly offered me a passage home and the hospitality 



