LOST ON THE ICE-CAP 



get food and secure a sled and dog team for the homeward 

 journey. It appeared to me that I would be able to reach 

 the shore in a short time, but the rough traveling made the 

 journey a very tedious one. The surface of the glacier 

 was covered with well-nigh impassable crevasses, and I 

 had become so tired that it mattered little if I fell into 

 one of them, so pushed along recklessly. Several times 

 I stepped into the crust of snow which concealed the 



AN ICE ARCH 



crevasses, repeating my experience of the early morning, 

 but I was no longer frightened, for I had reached such a 

 state that I did not care what happened. 



It was long after noon before I reached a place where 

 it was possible for me to leave the glacier. I had thought 

 that by traveling on the land instead of the ice, I might 

 find an easier road. I followed the bed of the stream 

 which flows beside the glacier in the summer time and 

 found but little improvement in the walking, the course of 

 the stream being strewn with huge boulders, which were 

 almost as difficult to travel over as the rough, hummocky 

 ice on the glacier. There was no danger of falling into 

 crevasses, however, and I knew that if I followed the 

 glacier to its end without leaving its surface, it would be 

 impossible for me to get off from it, as its face is per- 

 pendicular and about eighty feet high. 



The bed of the stream was in one place blocked by a 

 large mass of ice which had fallen away from the side of 

 the glacier, and was banked up against the steep mountain 



157 



