THE DISCOVERY OF THE POEE 



911 



From here we followed the Captain's 

 trail, and on April 23 our sledges passed 

 up the vertical edge of the glacier fringe, 

 a little west of Cape Columbia. When 

 the last sledge came up I thought my 

 Eskimos had gone crazy. They yelled 

 and called and danced themselves help- 

 less. As Ooath sat down on his sledge 

 he remarked in Eskimo : 



"The Devil is asleep or having trouble 

 with his wife, or we never should have 

 come back so easily." 



A few hours later we arrived at Crane 

 City under the bluffs of Cape Columbia, 

 and after putting four pounds of pem- 

 mican into each of the faithful dogs to 

 keep them quit, we had at last our chance 

 to sleep. Never shall I forget that sleep 

 at Cape Columbia. It was sleep, sleep, 

 then turn over and sleep again. We slept 

 gloriously, with never a thought of the 

 morrow or of having to walk, and, too, 

 with no thought that there was to be 

 never a night more of blinding headache. 

 Cold water to a parched throat is noth- 

 ing compared with sleep to a numbed, 

 fatigued brain and body. 



Two days we spent here in sleeping 

 and drying our clothes ; then for the 

 ship. Our dogs, like ourselves, had not 

 been hungry when we arrived, but simply 

 lifeless with fatigue. They were differ- 

 ent animals, and the better ones among 

 them stept on with tightly curled tails, 

 uplifted heads, and their hind legs tread- 

 ing the snow with piston-like regularity. 

 We reached Hecla in one march, and the 

 Roosevelt in another. 



When we got to the Roosevelt, I was 

 staggered by the news of the fatal mis- 

 hap to Marvin. He had either been less 

 cautious or less fortunate than the rest of 

 us, and his death emphasized the risk 

 to which we had all been subjected, for 

 there was not one of us but had been in 

 the sledge during some time in the jour- 

 ney. 



The big lead, cheated of its prey three 

 years before, had at last gained its hu- 

 man victim. 



The rest can be quickly told. Mc- 

 Millan and Borup had started for the 

 Greenland coast to deposit caches for 



me. Before I arrived a flying Eskimo 

 courier from me overtook them with in- 

 structions that the caches were no longer 

 needed, and that they were to concen- 

 trate their energies on tidal observations, 

 etc., at Cape Morris Jesup, and north 

 from there. 



These instructions were carried out, 

 and after their return in latter part of 

 May, McMillan made some further tidal 

 observations at other points. The sup- 

 plies remaining at the various caches 

 were brought in, and on July 18 the 

 Roosevelt left her winter quarters and 

 was driven out into the channel pack of 

 Cape Nion. 



She fought her way south in the cen- 

 ter of the channel, and passed Cape Sa- 

 bine on August 8, or thirty-nine days- 

 earlier than in 1908, and thirty-two days 

 earlier than the British expedition in 

 1876. 



We picked up Whitney and his party 

 and the stores at Etah. We killed 70 

 odd walrus for my Eskimos, whom I 

 landed at their homes. We met the 

 Jeanie off Saunders Island and took 

 over her coal, and cleared from Cape 

 York on August 26, one month earlier 

 than in 1906. 



On September 5 we arrived at Indian 

 Harbor, whence the message, "Stars and 

 Stripes nailed to North Pole," was sent 

 vibrating southward through the crisp 

 Labrador air. 



The culmination of long experience,. 

 a thorough knowledge of the conditions 

 of the problem, gained in the last expedi- 

 tion — these together with new sledges, 

 which reduced the work of both dogs and 

 driver, and a new type of camp cooker, 

 which added to the comfort and in- 

 creased the hours of sleep of the men's 

 party, combined to make the present ex- 

 pedition an agreeable improvement on 

 the last in respect to the rapidity and 

 effectiveness of its work, and the les- 

 sened discomfort and strain upon the 

 members of the party. 



As to the personnel, I have again been 

 particularly fortunate. Captain Bartlett 

 is just Bartlett — tireless, sleepless, en- 

 thusiastic, whether on the bridge, or in 



