THE BIG LEAD 
encountered in eighteen years' experience. 
We went so fast that we more than made up 
for lost time and at two o'clock, myself in the 
lead, we reached the igloo built by Captain 
Bartlett. It had been arranged that I should 
stop for one sleep at every igloo built by the 
Captain, and that he should leave a note in 
his igloo for my instructions; but, in spite of 
these previous arrangements, I felt that with 
such good traveling it would be just as wise 
to keep on going, and so we did, but it was 
only about half or three-quarters of an hour 
later when we were stopped by a lead, beside 
which the Captain had camped. With Ootah 
and Tommy to help, we built an igloo and 
crawled inside. Two hours later, the Com- 
mander and his party arrived, and we crawled 
out and turned the igloo over to him. 
Tommy, Ootah, and I then built another 
igloo, crawled inside, and blocked the doorway 
up with a slab of snow, determined not to turn 
out again until we had had a good feed and 
snooze. 
From my diary, the first entry since leav- 
ing the land ; with a couple of comments added 
afterward : 
85 
