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THE WELLMAN POLAR EXPEDITION 



ploring parties should be of but one nationality. It is a pleasure 

 to record that though we were Americans and Norwegians living 

 in one little room, night and day, for five months, not a word of 

 discord between Yankees and Norsemen marred the novel ex- 

 perience. No better or more faithful men ever served under the 

 banner of Norway than those young men who lived with me 

 under the Stars and Stripes at Cape Tegetthoff that winter, in 

 the most northerly inhabited house in the world, and who sub- 

 sequently accompanied me upon the sledge journey. 



BEARS WALKED UP TO OUR DOORS TO BE SHOT 



Copyright, 1899, by Walte7- Wellman 



It' was on February 18 that we set out upon this trip to the 

 north. The sun had not risen, and the days were short and 

 dark. But well we knew that if we were to make the Pole, or 

 approach nearer to it than any of our predecessors, we should 

 have to start very early in the Arctic morning. We stumbled 

 along in the gloom, through deep snows and rough ice, encoun- 

 tering storms and great cold, sometimes making but two or three 

 miles a day, and at last arrived at our outpost at Fort McKinley. 

 This was near the end of February. Here we found that a re- 

 markable tragedy — one of the most remarkable tragedies known 



