THE WHITE WORLD 



after the long period of darkness, but the mental strain had 

 passed, and we were content. The days were short, but 

 they were rapidly lengthening, and we knew that before 

 long we would have continuous daylight for an equal length 

 of time. 



Plans for our proposed trip across the ice-cap were well- 

 nigh finished, and the only thing that remained to be done 

 before making our dash for the Pole was to lay in a supply 

 of food for our dogs. The energies of almost every mem- 

 ber of the party were required to provide sufficient meat 

 for that purpose, so that no one could be spared by Lieu- 

 tenant Peary to assist me in the work of going into the 

 interior to dig from the snow the provisions which had 

 been cached at a point about thirty-five miles from the 

 house, and at the top of the steepest slopes of the ice-cap. 



Besides Lieutenant Peary, I was the only man of our 

 party who had visited the cache, and so was selected to 

 make the trip. The cache had not been visited for four 

 months, and we expected that the provisions left there 

 would be pretty well covered with snow, the accumulation 

 of the entire winter. My orders were to start from the 

 lodge Sunday afternoon for the moraine, where I was to 

 camp that night, and the next morning make my way to 

 the cache. On reaching it, my duty would be to dig the 

 provisions out of the snow and put up the two tons of pem- 

 mican in one hundred bags, so that they could be handled 

 easily on the journey across Greenland. When I had fin- 

 ished that work, I was to build several large snow-houses 

 which would form a shelter for the entire party while at 

 work loading sledges, etc., preparatory to making the start. 



As I left the house Sunday afternoon, I had a first-class 

 dog team and was accompanied by two natives. We took 

 no oil stove with us, and very few provisions, as we had 

 left an oil stove and plenty of food in a snow-house at the 

 moraine, where we had camped frequently during the fall 

 campaign. The distance to the moraine was five miles, and 

 the path or trail of the autumn before was entirely obliter- 

 ated by the snow which had fallen during the winter. The 

 traveling, which was over steep rocks, covered in many 

 places with ice, was the roughest imaginable, and before 

 we reached our camping place we were more than three 



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