THE POLAR SEA 
of Plutonian Purgatory. All through the 
night I would wake from the cold and beat 
my arms or feet to keep the circulation going, 
and I would hear one or both of my boys do- 
ing the same. I did not make any entries in 
the diary that day, and there was many a day 
like it after that. 
It was cold and dark when we left camp 
number one on the morning of March 2, at 
half past six o'clock. Breakfast had warmed 
us up a bit, but the hard pemmican had torn 
and cut the roofs and sides of our mouths so 
that we did not eat a full meal, and we decided 
that at our next camp we would boil the pem- 
mican in the tea and have a combination stew. 
I will say now that this experiment was tried, 
but it made such an unwholesome mess that it 
was never repeated. 
The Captain's and Borup's trail was still 
evident, in spite of the low drifts of the snow, 
but progress was slow. We were still in the 
heavy rubble-ice and had to continuously hew 
our way with pickaxes to make a path for the 
sledges. While we were at work making a 
pathway, the dogs would curl up and lie down 
with their noses in their tails, and w^e would 
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