Chapter XXXVI: How a Geographic Society Prostituted Its Name 541 (4)

We still had need of large quantities of supplies, and, while some of the natives were busy with their routine work, we planned that as many others as possible should use the twilight days pursuing bear, caribou, fox, hare and other game far beyond the usual Eskimo haunts. Before the dawn of the sun's afterglow, on the morning of October 26, seven sledges with sixty dogs were on the ice-foot near our camp, ready to start for hunting grounds near Humboldt Glacier, a distance of one hundred miles northward.[7]

While the teamsters waited for the final password the dogs chafed fiercely. I could barely see the outlines of my companions in the gloom, and it was difficult, in the irregular snow and tide-lifted ice descending to sea level, to find footing.

The word to start was given. My companions took up the cry.

"_Huk! Huk! Huk!_" (Go! Go!) they shouted.

The dogs responded in leaps and howls.

"_Howah! Howah!_" (Right! Right!) "_Egh! Egh!_" (Stop! Stop!) "_Aureti!_" (Behave!) came echoingly along the line of teams. Finally the wild dash slackened, the dogs regulated their paces to an easy trot, and we swept steadily along the frozen highway of the tide-made shelf of the ice-foot. The sledges dodged stones and ice-blocks, edged along dangerous precipices, in the depths of which I heard the swish of water, and glided miraculously over crevices and along deep gorges. Jumping about the sledges, guiding, pushing, or retarding their speed, cracking their whips in the air, the natives, with that art which only aborigines seem to have, picked the way and controlled the dogs, but a few generations removed from their wolf progenitors, with amazing dexterity.

A low wind blew down the slopes and froze our breath in lines of frost about our heads. The temperature was 35 deg. below zero. To the left of us was Kane Basin, recalling its history of human strife northward. It was filled with serried ranges of crushed ice, a berg here and there, all in the light of the kindling sky, aglow with purple and blue. To the far west I saw the dim outline of Ellesmere, my promised land, over which I hoped to force a new route to the Pole; upon its snowy highlands was poured a soft creamy light from encouraging skies. To the right was the rugged coast of Greenland, its huge, ice-chiselled cliffs leaping portentously forward in the gloom. Thrilling with the race, we made a run of twenty miles and reached Rensselaer Harbor, where Dr. Kane had spent his long nights of misfortune.

We pitched camp at the ice-foot at the head of the bay. Although we found traces of hare and fox, it was too dark to venture on the chase. The temperature had fallen to -40 deg., the wind pierced with a sharp sting. For my shelter I erected a new tent which I had invented, and the efficiency of which I desired to test. Taking the sledge frame work as a platform, a folding top of strong canvas was fastened, and spread between two bars of hickory from each end. The entrance was in front. Inside was a space eight feet long and three and one-half feet wide, with a round whaleback top. Inside this a supplementary wall was constructed of light blankets, offering an air space of an inch between the outer wall as a non-conductor to confine the little heat generated within. As there was ample room for only two persons, Koo-loo-ting-wah, my leading man, was invited to share the tent. The natives had not provided themselves with shelter of any kind. They had counted on either building an igloo or seeking the shelter of the snows, as do the creatures of the wilds.

Inside my tent I prepared a meal on the little German stove, burning the vapor of alcohol. The meal consisted of a pail of hot corn meal, fried bacon and a liberal all-round supply of steaming tea. To accomplish this, which included melting the snow, heating the water, and cooking everything separately, required about two hours. As I considered eating outside with any degree of comfort impossible, my companions were invited to crowd inside the tent. The vapor of their breath and that of the cooking soon condensed into snow, and a miniature snowstorm covered everything within. After this was swept out, the Eskimos were invited to enter again. All partook of the meal ravenously, and then emerged to reconnoiter the surroundings. Tracks of ptarmigan, hare and foxes were found, and as we moved about with seeking, owl eyes, ravens shouted notes of welcome.

We then retired to rest. As there was no snow about that was sufficiently hard to cut blocks with which to erect snow houses, the natives placed themselves in semi-reclining positions on their sledges and slept in their traveling clothes. After a few hours they awoke and partook of chopped frozen meat and blubber; two hours later, they made a fire in a tin can, with moss and blubber as fuel, and over this prepared a pot of parboiled meat. A crescent-shaped wall of snow was built to break the wind; in the shelter of this they sat, grinning delightedly, and eating savagely, with much smacking of the lips, the steaming broth and walrus meat. All this I studied with intense interest. I desired on this trip not only to test my tent, but to learn more of the native arts of the Eskimo, knowing that I, on my Polar trip, must, if I would be successful, adapt myself to just such methods of living.

This was my first winter experience of camping out in the night season for this year, and, with only a diet of meal and bacon, I was miserably cold. I was now testing also for the first time the new winter clothing with which I and all my companions were dressed. Our shirts were made of bird skins. Over these were coats of blue fox or caribou skins; our trousers were of bear, our boots of seal, and our stockings of hare skins. This was the usual native winter costume, but under it I had added a suit of underwear.

Retiring again for rest, I left instructions to be called for an early start. It seemed that I had hardly settled comfortably in my sleeping bag when the call for action came.

We hastily partook of tea and biscuits, harnessed our teams and started through the dark. The Eskimos, having eaten their fill of fat and frozen meat, to which I must yet accustom myself, were thoroughly comfortable. I was miserably cold.

By running behind my sledge I produced sufficient bodily heat after awhile to feel comfortable. My face suffered severely from the cutting slant of the winds. We passed the perpendicular walls of Cape Seiper at dawn. We ran along the long, straight coast into Bancroft Bay during the six hours of twilight. The journey was continued to Dallas Bay by a forced march of fifty miles before we halted.

The scene displayed the rare glory of twilight charms as it had the day before, but the snow was deeper, the temperature lower. The wind steadily increased and veered northward. We made several efforts to cross the bay ice, but cracked ice, huge uplifted blocks and deep snows compelled a retreat to the ice-foot.

The ice-foot along Smith Sound is a superb highway, where otherwise sledge travel would be quite impossible along the coast.

Along Dallas Bay we found a great deal of grass-covered land in undulating valleys and on low hills, which offered grazing for caribou and hare. The preceding glimmer of the new moon, which was to rise a few days hence, offered sufficient light to search for game.

We now fed our dogs for the first time since leaving Annoatok. After a liberal drink of snow water, we started to seek our luck in the chase. In the course of an hour my companions returned with four hares which, when dressed, weighed about forty-eight pounds. Two of these were cached. The others were eaten later.

Before dawn of the day-long twilight the wind increased to a full gale. The sky to the north, smoky all night, now blackened as with soot. The wind came with a howl that brought to mind the despairing cries of the dying explorers whose bleached bones were strewn along the shore. The gloomy outline of the coast remained visible for awhile; but soon the air thickened and came weighted with snow that piled up in huge drifts.

The Eskimos took a few of their favorite dogs and sought shelter to the lee of the tent, where drift covered their blankets with snow. Breathing holes were kept open over their faces. Buried in snow drifts, they were imprisoned for twenty-eight hours. But this tent sled sheltered Koo-loo-ting-wah and myself. When the rush of the storm had abated we began digging our way out. In this effort we dug up men and dogs like potatoes from a patch. The northern sky had paled, the south was brightening. The pack was lined with long lines beyond each hummock; the snow was covered with a strong crust. But the ice-foot was a hopeless line of drifts which made travel over it quite impossible.

The work of pounding snow from the dogs and freeing the sledges brought to our faces beads of perspiration which rolled off and froze in lines of ice on our furs. We were none the worse as a result of the storm, and although hungry as wolves, time was too precious to stop for a full meal.

We now pushed out of the bay, on to the sea ice. At this point the dogs scented a bear and soon crossed its track. Rested and hungry, they were in condition for a desperate chase. Their sharp noses pointed keenly into the huge bear foot-prints, their little ears quivered, while, with howls, they started onward in a mad rush.

Neither our voices nor the whips made an impression on their wild speed. We crossed banks and ridges of snow and swirled about slopes of ice, gripping sledges violently. Now we were thrown to one side, again to the other, dragging resistlessly beside the sleds. Rising, we gripped the rear upstanders with fierce determination.

Just how we escaped broken limbs, and our sledges utter destruction, is a mystery to me. After a run of an hour we sighted the bear. The animal had evidently sighted us, for he was galloping for the open water toward the northwest. We cut the fleetest dogs loose from each team. Freed, they rushed over the snow like race-horses. But the bear had an advantage. As the first dog nipped his haunches he plunged into the black waters. We advanced and waited for him to rise. But this bruin had sense enough to emerge on the opposite shore, where he shook off the freezing waters vigorously, and then sat down as if to have a laugh at us.

I knew that to plunge into the waters would have been fatal to dog or man and equally fatal to a boat, as ice, in the intense cold, would form about it so rapidly that it could not be propelled.

The dogs sat down and howled a chorus of sad disappointment. For miles about, the men sought fruitlessly for a way to cross. Outwitted, we returned to continue our journey Northward.

Advance Bay and its islands were in sight. Among these, we aimed to place our central camp. The light was fading fast, and a cold wind came from Humboldt Glacier, which at this time was located by a slight darkening of the sky. Many grounded icebergs were about, and the sea ice was much crossed. The hummocks and the snow were not as troublesome as farther south.

Two ravens followed us, their shrill cries echoing from berg to berg. The Eskimos inferred from their presence that bears were near, but we saw no tracks.

The cries of the ravens were nearly as provoking to the dogs as the bear tracks, and we moved along rapidly to Brook's Island. This was rather high, with a plateau and sharp cliffs. Bonsall Island near by was rounded by glacial action. Between them we found a place to camp somewhat sheltered from the wind.

While eating our ration of corn meal and bacon, howls of the dogs rose to a fierce crescendo. I supposed they were saluting the coming of the moon, as is their custom, but the howls changed to tones of increasing excitement. We went out to inquire, but saw nothing. It was so dark that I could not see the dogs twenty feet away, and the cold wind made breathing difficult.

"_Nan nook_" (Bear), the Eskimos said in an undertone. I looked around for some position of defense. But the dense night-blackness rendered this hopeless, so we took our position behind the tent, rifles in hand. The bear, of an inquisitive turn of mind, deliberately advanced upon us. "_Taokoo! taokoo! igloo dia oo-ah-tonie!_" (Look! look! beyond the iceberg!) said the Eskimos. Neither the iceberg nor the bear was visible. After a cold and exciting wait, the bear turned and hid behind another iceberg. We separated a few of the best bear dogs from each other. Bounding off, they disappeared quietly in the darkness. The other dogs were fastened to the sledges, and away we started.

I sat on To-ti-o's sledge, as he had the largest team. We jumped crevasses, and occasionally dipped in open water.

The track of the bear wound about huge bergs which looked in the darkness like nebulous shadows. The dogs, of themselves, followed the invisible line of tracks.

Soon the wolfish dogs ahead began to shout the chorus of their battle. We left the track in an air-line course for the dark mystery out of which the noise came. To-ti-o took the lead. As we neared the noise, all but two dogs of his sledge were cut loose. The sledge overturned, I under it. As Koo-loo-ting-wah came along, he freed all his dogs. I passed him my new take-down Winchester.

Hurrying after To-ti-o, he had advanced only a few steps when To-ti-o fired. Koo-loo-ting-wah, noting an effort of the bear to rise, fired the new rifle.

A flash of fire lit the darkness. Koo-loo-ting-wah rushed to me, asking for the folding lantern. The smokeless powder had broken the new gun. To-ti-o had no more cartridges. The bear, however, was quiet. We advanced, lances in hand.

The dogs danced wildly about the bear, but he managed to throw out his feet with sufficient force to keep the canine fangs disengaged. The other Eskimos now came, with rushing dogs in advance. To-ti-o dashed forward and delivered the lance under the bear's shoulder. The bear was his. He thereby not only gained the prize for the expedition, but, by the addition of the bear to his game list, completed his retinue of accomplishments whereby he could claim the full privileges of manhood.

Among other things, it gave him the right to marry. He had already secured a bride of twelve, but, without this bear conquest, the match would not have been permanent. He danced with the romantic joy of a young lover. We drove the dogs off from the victim with lashes, and fell to and skinned and dressed the carcass. A taste was given to each dog. The balance was placed on the sledges. Soon we were to camp, waiting for the sled loads of bear meat.

A NATIVE HELPER

AH-WE-LAH'S PROSPECTIVE WIFE]

On the day following we started to hunt caribou. The sky was beautifully clear; the glacial wind was lost as we left the ice. The party scattered among numerous old bergs of the glacier. Koo-loo-ting-wah accompanied me. We aimed to rise to a small tableland from which I might make a study of the surroundings.

We had not gone inland more than a mile when we saw numerous fresh caribou tracks. Following these, we moved along a steep slope to the tableland above at an altitude of about one thousand feet. We peeped over the crest. Below us were two reindeer digging under the snow for food. The light was good, and they were in gun range. An Eskimo, however, gets very near his game before he chances a shot, so, winding about under the crest of a cliff or a snow-covered shelf of rocks, we got to their range and fired.

The creatures fell. They were nearly white, young, and possessed long fur and thick skins, which we needed badly for sleeping bags. With pocket knives, the natives skinned the animals and divided the meat in three packs while I examined the surroundings.

Part of the face of Humboldt Glacier, which extends sixty miles north, was clearly visible in cliffs of a dark blue color. The interior ice ran in waves like the surface of stormy seas, perfectly free of snow, with many crevasses. An odd purplish-blue light upon it was reflected to the skies, resembling to some extent a water sky. The snow of the sea ice below was of a delicate lilac. Otherwise, sky and land were flooded with the usual dominant purple of the Arctic twilight.

This glacier, the largest in Arctic America, had at one time extended very much farther south. All the islands, including Brook's, had at one time been under its grinding influence. As a picture it was a charming study in purple and blue, but the temperature was too low and the light too nearly spent to venture a further investigation.

The Eskimos fixed for me an extremely light pack. This was comfortably placed on my back, with a bundle of thongs over the forehead. The natives took their huge bundles, and, together, we started for camp. At every rest we cut off slices of caribou tallow. I was surprised to find that I had acquired a taste for a new delicacy. At camp we found the natives, all in good humor, awaiting us beside heaps of meat and skins. All had been successful in securing from one to two animals each in regions nearer by. In a further search they had failed to find promising tracks, so we proposed to return on the morrow, hoping to meet bears en route.

With the stupor of the gluttony of reindeer meat and the fatigue of the long chase, we slept late. Awaking, we partook each of a cup of tea, and packed and loaded the meat. Drawing heavy loads, the dogs gladly leaped forward. The twilight flush already suffused the sky with incandescence. Against the southeastern sky, glowing with rose, the great glaciers of Humboldt loomed in walls of violet, while the sea displayed many shades of rose and lilac, according to the direction of the light on the slope of the drifts.

Knowing that their noses pointed to a land of walrus, the dogs kept up a lively pace. Not a breath of air was stirring. The temperature was -42 deg.. Aiming to make Annoatok in two marches, we ran behind the sledges to save dog energy as much as possible. The cold enforced vigorous exercise. But, weighted down by furs, the comfort of the sledges was often sought to escape the tortures of perspiration. The source of light slowly shifted along shadowed mountains under the frozen sea. Our path glowed with electric, multi-colored splendor.

By degrees, the rose-colored sky assumed the hue of old gold, the violet embroideries of clouds changed to purple. The gold, in running bands, darkened; the purple thickened. Soon new celestial torches lighted the changing sheen of the snows. Into the dome of heaven swam stars of burning intensity, each of which rivalled the sun in a miniature way. In this new illumination the twilight fires lost flame and color. Cold white incandescence electrically suffused the frigid sky.

I strode onward, in that white, blazing air, the joy and beauty of it enthralling my soul. I felt as though I were walking in a world of heatless fire, a half supernatural realm such as that wherein reigned the gods of ancient peoples. I felt as an old Norseman must have felt when the glory of Valhalla burst upon him. For a long time I was unconscious of the fatigue which was growing upon me. Finally, overcome by the long forced march, I sank on my sled. The Eskimos, chanting songs, loomed ahead, their forms magnified in the unearthly light. Slowly a subtle change appeared along the horizon. Silent and impressed, I watched the changing scenes and evolving lights as if all were some divine and awe-inspiring stage arranged by God for some heroic drama of man.

New and warm with shimmering veils of color, attended by four radiant satellites, the golden face of the moon rose majestically over the sparkling pinnacles of the Greenland glaciers. Below, the lovely planet-deflected images formed rainbow curves like rubied necklaces about her invisible neck. As the moon ascended in a spiral course the rose hues paled, the white light from the stars softened to a rich, creamy glow.

We continued our course, the Eskimos singing, the dogs occasionally barking. Hours passed. Then we all suddenly became silent. The last, the supreme, glory of the North flamed over earth and frozen sea. The divine fingers of the aurora,[8] that unseen and intangible thing of flame, who comes from her mysterious throne to smile upon a benighted world, began to touch the sky with glittering, quivering lines of glowing silver. With skeins of running, liquid fire she wove over the sky a shimmering panorama of blazing beauty. Forms of fire, indistinct and unhuman, took shape and vanished. From horizon to zenith, cascades of milk-colored fire ascended and fell, as must the magical fountains of heaven.

In the glory of this other-world light I felt the insignificance of self, a human unit; and, withal I became more intensely conscious than ever of the transfiguring influence of the sublime ideal to which I had set myself. I exulted in the thrill of an indomitable determination, that determination of human beings to essay great things--that human purpose which, throughout history, has resulted in the great deeds, the great art, of the world, and which lifts men above themselves. Spiritually intoxicated, I rode onward. The aurora faded. But its glow remained in my soul.

We arrived at camp late on November 1.

THE MOONLIGHT QUEST OF THE WALRUS

DESPERATE AND DANGEROUS HUNTING, IN ORDER TO SECURE ADEQUATE SUPPLIES FOR THE POLAR DASH--A THRILLING AND ADVENTUROUS RACE IS MADE OVER FROZEN SEAS AND ICY MOUNTAINS TO THE WALRUS GROUNDS--TERRIFIC EXPLOSION OF THE ICE ON WHICH THE PARTY HUNTS--SUCCESS IN SECURING OVER SEVEN SLED-LOADS OF BLUBBER MAKES THE POLE SEEM NEARER--AN ARCTIC TRAGEDY

VIII

FIVE HUNDRED MILES THROUGH NIGHT AND STORM

The early days of November were devoted to routine work about Annoatok. Meat was gathered and dried in strips by Francke; a full force of men were put to the work of devising equipment; the women were making clothing and dressing skins; and then a traveling party was organized to go south to gather an additional harvest of meat and skins and furs. For this purpose we planned to take advantage of the November moon. Thus, in the first week of the month, we were ready for a five-hundred-mile run to the southern villages and to the night-hunting grounds for walrus.

A crack of whips explosively cut the taut, cold air. The raucous, weird and hungry howl of the wolf-dogs replied: "_Ah-u-oo, Ah-u-oo, Ah-u-oo!_" rolled over the ice; "_Huk-huk!_" the Eskimos shouted. There was a sudden tightening of the traces of our seven sledges; fifty lithe, strong bodies leaped forward; and, holding the upstanders, the rear upright framework of the native sledges, I and my six companions were off. In a few moments the igloos of the village, with lights shining through windows where animal membranes served as glass, had sped by us. The cheering of the natives behind was soon lost in the grind of our sledges on the irregular ice and the joyous, unrestrained barking of the leaping, tearing, restless dog-teams.

To the south of us, a misty orange flush suffused the dun-colored sky. The sun, which we had not seen for an entire month, now late in November far below the horizon, sent to us the dim radiance of a far-away smile. After its setting it had, about noon time of each day, set the sky faintly aglow, this radiance decreasing until it was lost in the brightness of the midday moon. Rising above the horizon, a suspended lamp of frosty, pearl-colored glass, the moon for ten days of twenty-four hours, each month, encircled about us, now lost behind ice-sheeted mountains, again subdued under colored films of frost clouds, but always relieving the night of its gloom, and permitting, when the wind was not too turbulent, outside activity.

A wonderful animal is the sea-horse, or whale-horse, as the Icelanders and Dutch (from whom we have borrowed "walrus") call it. In the summer its life is easy and its time is spent in almost perpetual sunny dreams, but in winter it would be difficult to conceive of a harder existence than its own. Finding food in shallow Polar seas, it comes to permanent open water, or to the crevasses of an active pack for breath. With but a few minutes' rest on a storm-swept surface, it explores, without other relief for weeks, the double-night darkness of unknown depths under the frozen sea. At last, when no longer able to move its huge web feet, it rises on the ice or seeks ice-locked waters for a needed rest. In winter, the thump of its ponderous head keeps the young ice from closing its breathing place. If on ice, its thick skin, its blanket of blubber, and an automatic shiver, keep its blood from hardening. This is man's opportunity to secure meat and fuel, but the quest involves a task to which no unaided paleface is equal. The night hunt of the walrus is Eskimo sport, but it is nevertheless sport of a most engaging and exciting order.

So that I might not be compelled to start on my dash stintedly equipped, we now prepared for such an adventure by moonlight. Before this time there had not been sufficient atmospheric stability and ice continuity to promise comparative safety. My heart exulted as I heard the crack of the whips in the electric air and felt the earth rush giddily under my feet as I leaped behind the speeding teams. The fever of the quest was in my veins; its very danger lent an indescribable thrill, for success now meant more to me than perhaps hunting had ever meant to any man.

Not long after we started, darkness descended. The moon slowly passed behind an impenetrable curtain of inky clouds; the orange glow of the sun faded; and we were surrounded on every side by a blackness so thick that it was almost palpable.

As I now recall that mad race I marvel how we escaped smashing sledges, breaking our limbs, crushing our heads. We tumbled and jumped in a frantic race over the broken, irregular pack-ice from Annoatok to Cape Alexander, a distance of thirty miles as the raven moves, but more than forty miles as we follow the sledge trail. Here the ice became thin; we felt cold mist rising from open water; and now and then, in an occasional breaking of the darkness, we could discern vast sheets or snaky leads of open sea ahead of us.

To reach the southern waters where the walrus were to be found, we now had to seek an overland route, which would take us over the frozen Greenland mountains and lead us through the murky clouds, a route of twisting detours, gashed glaciers, upturned barriers of rock and ice, swept by blinding winds, unmarked by any trail, and which writhed painfully beyond us for forty-seven miles.

Arriving at the limit of traversable sea-ice, we now paused before sloping cliffs of glacial land-ice which we had to climb. Picture to yourself a vast glacier rising precipitously, like a gigantic wall, thousands of feet above you, and creeping tortuously up its glassy, purple face, if such that surface could be called, formed by the piling of one glacial formation upon the other in the descent through the valleys, a twisting, retreating road of jagged ice strata, of earth and stone, blocked here and there by apparently impassable impediments, pausing at almost unscalable, frozen cliffs, and at times no wider than a few yards. Imagine yourself pausing, as we suddenly did, and viewing the perilous ascent, the only way open to us, revealed in the passing glimmer of the pale, circling moon, despair, fear and hope tugging at your heart. Whipped across the sky by the lashing winds, the torn clouds, passing the face of the moon, cast magnified and grotesquely gesticulating shadows on the glistening face of the icy Gibraltar before us. Some of these misty shapes seemed to threaten, others shook their rag-like arms, beckoning forward. Upon the face of the towering, perpendicular ice-wall, great hummocks like the gnarled black limbs of a huge tree twisted upwards.

I realized that the frightful ascent must be made. The goal of my single aim suddenly robbed the climb of its terrors. I dropped my whip. Six other whips cracked through the air. Koo-loo-ting-wah said, "_Kah-Kah!_" (Come, come!) But Sotia said, "_Iodaria-Iodaria!_" (Impossible, impossible!) The dogs emitted shrill howls. Holding the rear upstanders of the sledges, we helped to push them forward.

Before us, the fifty dogs climbed like cats through narrow apertures of the ice, or took long leaps over the serried battlements that barred our way. We stumbled after, sometimes we fell. Again we had to lift the sledges after the dogs.

From the top of the glacier a furious wind brushed us backwards. We felt the steaming breath of the laboring dogs in our faces. My heart thumped painfully. Now and then the moon disappeared; we followed the unfailing instinct of the animals. I realized that a misstep might plunge me to a horrible death in the ice abysm below. With a howl of joy from drivers, the dogs finally leaped to the naked surface of the wind-swept glacier. Panting in indescribable relief, we followed. But the worst part of the journey lay before us. The sable clouds, like the curtain of some cyclopean stage, seemed suddenly drawn aside as if by an invisible hand.

Upon the illimitable stretch of ice rising before us like the slopes of a glass mountain, the full rays of the moon poured liquid silver. Only in dreams had such a scene as this been revealed to me--in dreams of the enchanted North--which did not now equal reality. The spectacle filled me with both awed delight and a sense of terror.

Beyond the fan-shaped teams of dogs the eyes ran over fields of night-blackened blue, gashed and broken by bottomless canyons which twisted like purple serpents in every direction. Vast expanses of smooth surface, polished by the constant winds, reflected the glow of the moon and gleamed like isles of silver in a motionless, deep, sapphire sea; but all was covered with the air of night. In the moonlight, the jagged irregular contours of the broken ice became touched with a burning gilt. A constant effect like running quicksilver played about us as the moon sailed around the heavens.

Above us the ice pinnacles were lost in the clouds, huge billowy masses that were blown in the wind troublously, like the heavy black tresses of some Titan woman. I thrilled with the beauty of the magical spectacle, yet, when I viewed the perilous pathway, I felt the grip of terror again at my heart.

I was aroused from my brief reverie by the familiar "_Huk-huk! Ah-gah! Ah-gah!_" of the Eskimos, and placing our hands upon the sledges, we leaped forward into the purple-gashed sea, with its blinding sheets of silver. I seemed carried through a world such as the old Norsemen sang of in the sagas.

Of a sudden, as though extinguished, the moonlight faded, huge shadows leaped onto the ice before us, frenziedly waved their arms and melted into the pitch-black darkness which descended. I had read imaginative tales of wanderings in the nether region of the dead, but only now did I have a faint glimmering of the terror (with its certain, exultant intoxication) which lost souls must feel when they wander in a darkness beset with invisible horrors.

Over the ice, cut with innumerable chasms and neck-breaking irregularities, we rushed in the dark. The wind moaned down from the despairing cloud-enfolded heights above; it tore through the bottomless gullies on every side with a hungry roar. Beads of perspiration rolled down my face and froze into icicles on my chin and furs. The temperature was 48 deg. below zero.

Occasionally we stopped a moment to gasp for breath. I could hear the panting of my companions, the labor of the dogs. A few seconds' inaction was followed by convulsive shivering; the pain of stopping was more excruciating than that of climbing. In the darkness, the calls of the invisible Eskimos to the dogs seemed like the weird appeals of disembodied things. I felt each moment the imminent danger of a frightful death; yet the dogs with their marvelous intuition, twisting this way and that, and sometimes retreating, sensed the open leads ahead and rushed forward safely.

At times I felt the yawning depth of ice canyons immediately by my side--that a step might plunge me into the depths. Desperately I held on to the sledges, and was dragged along. Such an experience might well turn the hair of the most expert Alpinist white in one night; yet I did not have time to dwell fully upon the dangers, and I was carried over a trip more perilous than, later, proved the actual journey on sea-ice to the Pole.

Occasionally the moon peered forth from its clouds and brightened the gloom. In its light the ice fields swam dizzily by us, as a landscape seen from the window of a train; the open gashed gullies writhed like snakes, pinnacles dancing like silver spears. By alternate running and riding we managed to keep from freezing and sweating. We finally reached an altitude of inland ice exceeding two thousand feet. Silver fog crept under our feet. We were traveling now in a world of clouds.

We paced twelve miles at a rapid speed. In the light of the moon-burned clouds which rolled about our heads, I could see the forms of my companions only indistinctly. The dogs ahead were veiled in the argent, tremulous mists; the ice sped under me; I was no longer conscious of an earthly footing; I might have been soaring in space.

We began to descend. Suddenly the dogs started in leaps to fly through the air. Our sleds were jerked into clouds of cutting snow. We jabbed our feet into the drift to check the mad speed. On each side we saw a huge mountain, seemingly thousands of feet above us, but ahead was nothing but the void of empty space. Soon the sledges shot beyond the dogs. We threw ourselves off to check the momentum. With dog intelligence and savage strength judiciously expended, we reached the sea level by flying flights over dangerous slopes, and, like cats, we landed on nimble feet in Sontag Bay.

A bivouac was arranged under a dome of snow-blocks, and exhausted by the mad journey, a sleep of twenty-four hours was indulged in.

Now, for a time, our task was easier. A course was set along the land, southward. Each of the native settlements was visited. The season's gossip was exchanged. Presents went into each household, and a return of furs and useful products filled our sledges. Thus the time was occupied in profitable visits during the feeble light of the November moon. With the December moon we returned northward to Ser-wah-ding-wah.

Then our struggle began anew for the walrus grounds. The Polar drift, forcing through Smith Sound, left an open space of water about ten miles south of Cape Alexander. This disturbed area was our destination. It was marked by a dark cloud, a "water-sky"--against the pearly glow of the southern heavens. The ice surface was smooth. We did not encounter the crushed heaps of ice of the northern route, but there were frequent crevasses which, though cemented with new ice, gave us considerable anxiety, for I realized that if a northwesterly storm should suddenly strike the pack we might be carried helplessly adrift.

The urgency of our mission to secure dog food, however, left no alternative. It was better to brave death now, I thought, than to perish from scant supplies on the Polar trip. We had not gone far before the ever-keen canine noses detected bear tracks on the ice. These we shot over the pack surface in true battle spirit. As the bears were evidently bound for the same hunting grounds, this course was accepted as good enough for us. Although the trail was laid in a circuitous route, it avoided the most difficult pressure angles. We traveled until late in the day. The moon was low, and the dark purple hue of the night blackened the snows.

Of a sudden we paused. From a distance came a low call of walrus bulls. The bass, nasal bellow was muffled by the low temperature, and did not thump the ear drums with the force of the cry in sunny summer. My six companions shouted with glee, and became almost hysterical with excitement. The dogs, hearing the call, howled and jumped to jerk the sledges. We dropped our whips, and they responded with all their brute force in one bound. It was difficult to hold to the sledges as we shot over the blackening snows.

The ice-fields became smaller as we advanced; dangerous thin ice intervened; but the owl-eyes of the Eskimos knew just where to find safe ice. The sounds increased as we approached. We descended from the snow-covered ice to thin, black ice and for a time I felt as if we were flying over the open surface of the deep. With a low call, the dogs were stopped. They were detached from the sledges and tied to holes drilled with a knife in ice boulders.

Pushing the sledges upon which rested the harpoon, the lance, the gun and knives, each one of us advanced at some distance from his neighbor. Soon, lines of mist told of dangerous breaks, and the ice was carefully tested with the spiked shaft before venturing farther. I was behind Koo-loo-ting-wah's sledge. While he was creeping up to the water's edge, there came the rush of a spouting breath so near that we seemed to feel the crystal spray. I took his place and pushed the sledge along.

Taking the harpoon, with stealthy strides Koo-loo-ting-wah moved to the water's edge and waited for the next spout. We heard other spouts in various directions, and in the dark water, slightly lighted by the declining moon, we saw other dark spots of spray. Suddenly a burst of steam startled me. It was near the ice where Koo-loo-ting-wah lay. I was about to shout, but the Eskimo turned, held up his hand and whispered "_Ouit-ou._" (Wait.)

Then, very slowly, he lowered his body, spread out his form on the ice, and startlingly imitated the walrus call. His voice preternaturally bellowed through the night. Out of the inky water, a walrus lifted its head. I saw its long, white, spiral, ivory tusk and two phosphorescent eyes. Koo-loo-ting-wah did not stir. I shivered with cold and impatience. Why did he not strike? Our prey seemed within our hands. I uttered an exclamation of vexed disappointment when, with a splash, the head disappeared, leaving on the water a line of algae fire.

For several minutes I stood gazing seaward. Far away on the black ocean, to my amazement, I saw lights appearing like distant lighthouse signals, or the mast lanterns on passing ships. They flashed and suddenly faded, these strange will-o'-the wisps of the Arctic sea. In a moment I realized that the lights were caused by distant icebergs crashing against one another. On the bergs as on the surface of the sea, as it happened now, were coatings of a teeming germ life, the same which causes phosphorescence in the trail of an ocean ship. The effect was indescribably weird.

Suddenly I jumped backward, appalled by a noise that reverberated shudderingly under the ice on which I stood. The ice shook as if with an earthquake. I hastily retreated, but Koo-loo-ting-wah, lying by the water's edge, never stirred. A dead man could not have been less responsive. While I was wondering as to the cause of the upheaval, the ice, within a few feet of Koo-loo-ting-wah, was suddenly torn asunder as if by a submarine explosion. Koo-loo-ting-wah leaped into the air and descended apparently toward the distending space of turbulent open water. I saw him raise his arm and deliver a harpoon with amazing dexterity; at the same instant I had seen also the white tusk and phosphorescent eyes of a walrus appear for a moment in the black water and then sink.

The harpoon had gone home; the line was run out; a spiked lance shaft was driven into the ice through a loop in the end of the line, and the line was thus fastened. We knew the wounded beast would have to rise for air. With rifle and lance ready, we waited, intending, each time a spout of water arose, to drive holes into the tough armor of skin until the beast's vitals were tapped. By feeling the line, I could sense the struggles of the wild creature below in the depths of the sea. Then the line would slacken, a spout of steam would rise from the water, Koo-loo-ting-wah would drive a spear, I a shot from my gun. The air would become oppressive with the creature's frightful bellowing. Then would come an interval of silence.

For about two hours we kept up the battle. Then the line slackened, Koo-loo-ting-wah called the others, and together we drew the huge carcass, steaming with blood, to the surface of the ice. Smelling the odorous wet blood, the dogs exultantly howled.

Falling upon the animal, the natives, trained in the art, with sharp knives had soon dressed the thick meat and blubber from the bones and lashed the weltering mass on a sledge. This done, with quick despatch, they separated, dashed along the edge of the ice, casting harpoons whenever the small geysers appeared on the water. We were in excellent luck. One walrus after another was dragged lumberingly on the ice, and in the course of several hours the seven sledges were heavily loaded with the precious supplies which would now enable me, liberally equipped, to start Poleward. We gave our dogs a light meal, and started landward, leaving great piles of walrus meat behind us on the ice.

Although we were tired on reaching land, we began to build several snow-houses in which to sleep. Not far away was an Eskimo village. Summoning the natives to help us bring in the spoils of the hunt which had been left on the ice, we first indulged in a gluttonous feast of uncooked meat, in which the dogs ravenously joined. The meat tasted like train-oil. The work of bringing in the meat and blubber and caching it for subsequent gathering was hardly finished when, from the ominous, glacial-covered highlands, a winter blast suddenly began to come with terrific and increasing fury.

Blinding gusts of snow whipped the frozen earth. The wind shrieked fiendishly. Above its roar, not three hours after our last trip on the ice, a resounding, crashing noise rose above the storm. Braving the blasts, I went outside the igloo. Through the darkness I could see white curvatures of piling sea-ice. I could hear the rush and crashing of huge floes and glaciers being carried seaward. Had we waited another day, had we been out on the ice seeking walrus just twenty-four hours after our successful hunt, we should have been carried away in the sudden roaring gale, and hopelessly perished in the wind-swept deep.

During the night, or hours usually allotted to rest, the noise continued unabated. I failed to sleep. Now and then, a crashing noise shivered through the storm. An igloo from the nearby settlement was swept into the sea. During the gale many of the natives who had retired with their clothes hung out to dry, awoke to find that the wind had robbed them of their valuable winter furs.

Some time along in the course of the night, I heard outside excited Eskimos shouting. There was terror in the voices. Arising and dressing hastily, I rushed into the teeth of the storm. Not far away were a number of natives rushing along the land some twenty feet beneath which the sea lapped the land-ice with furious tongues. They had cast lines into the sea and were shouting, it seemed, to someone who was struggling in the hopeless, frigid tumult of water.

I soon learned of the dreadful catastrophe. Ky-un-a, an old and cautious native, awakened by the storm a brief while before, after dressing himself, ventured outside his stone house to secure articles which he had left there. As was learned later, he had just tied his sledge to a rock when a gust of wind resistlessly rushed seaward, lifted the aged man from his feet, and dropped him into the sea. Through the storm, his dreadful cries attracted his companions. Some who were now tugging at the lines, were barely covered with fur rugs which they had thrown about them, and their limbs were partly bare. Now and then, a blinding gust of wind, filled with freezing snow crystals, almost lifted us from our feet. The sea lapped its tongues sickeningly below us.

Finally a limp body, ice-sheeted, dripping with water, yet clinging with its mummied frozen hands to the line, was hauled up on the ice. Ky-un-a, unconscious, was carried to his house about five hundred feet away. There, after wrapping him in furs, in a brave effort to save his life, the natives cut open his fur garments. The fur, frozen solid by the frigid blasts in the brief period which had elapsed since his being lifted from the water, took with it, in parting from his body, long patches of skin, leaving the quivering raw flesh exposed as though by a burn. For three days the aged man lay dying, suffering excruciating tortures, the victim of merely a common accident, which at any time may happen to anyone of these Spartan people. I shall never forget the harrowing moans of the suffering man piercing the storm. Perhaps it had been merciful to let him perish in the sea.

Ky-un-a's old home was some forty miles distant. To it, that he might die there, he desired to go. On the fourth day after the accident, he was placed in a litter, covered with warm furs, and borne over the smooth icefields. I shall never forget that dismal and solemn procession. A benign calm prevailed over land and sea. The orange glow of a luxurious moon set the ice coldly aflame. Long shadows, like spectral mourners, robed in purple, loomed before the tiny procession. Now and then, as they dwindled in the distance, I saw them, like black dots, crossing areas of polished ice which glowed like mirror lakes of silver. From the distance, softly shuddered the decreasing moans of the dying man; then there was silence. I marvelled again upon the lure of this eerily, weirdly beautiful land, where, always imminent, death can be so terrible.

MIDNIGHT AND MID-WINTER

THE EQUIPMENT AND ITS PROBLEMS--NEW ART IN THE MAKING OF SLEDGES COMBINING LIGHTNESS--PROGRESS OF THE PREPARATIONS--CHRISTMAS, WITH ITS GLAD TIDINGS AND AUGURIES FOR SUCCESS IN QUEST OF THE POLE

IX

THE COMING OF THE ESKIMO STORK

In planning for the Polar dash I appreciated fully the vital importance of sledges. These, I realized, must possess, to an ultimate degree, the combined strength of steel with the lightness and elasticity of the strongest wood. The sledge must neither be flimsy nor bulky; nor should it be heavy or rigid. After a careful study of the art of sledge-traveling from the earliest time to the present day, after years of sledging and sledge observation in Greenland, the Antarctic and Alaska, I came to the conclusion that success was dependent, not upon any one type of sledge, but upon local fitness.

All natives of the frigid wilds have devised sledges, traveling and camp equipment to fit their local needs. The collective lessons of ages are to be read in this development of primitive sledge traveling. If these wild people had been provided with the best material from which to work out their hard problems of life, then it is probable that their methods could not be improved. But neither the Indian nor the Eskimo was ever in possession of either the tools or the raw material to fit their inventive genius for making the best equipment. Therefore, I had studied first the accumulated results of the sledge of primitive man and from this tried to construct a sledge with its accessories in which were included the advantages of up-to-date mechanics with the use of the most durable material which a search of the entire globe had afforded me.[9]

The McClintock sledges, made of bent wood with wide runners, had been adopted by nearly all explorers, under different names and with considerable modifications, for fifty years. This sledge is still the best type for deep soft snow conditions, for which it was originally intended. But such snow is not often found on the ice of the Polar sea. The native sledge which Peary copied, although well adapted to local use along the ice-foot and the land-adhering pack, is not the best sledge for a trans-boreal run. This is because it is too heavy and too easily broken, and breakable in such a way that it cannot be quickly repaired.

For the Arctic pack, a sledge must be of a moderate length, with considerable width. Narrow runners offer less friction and generally give sufficient bearing surface. The other qualities vital to quick movement and durability are lightness, elasticity and interchangeability of parts. All of these conditions I planned to meet in a new pattern of sledge which should combine the durability of the Eskimo sledges and the lightness of the Yukon sledge of Alaska.

The making of a suitable sledge caused me a good deal of concern. Before leaving New York I had taken the precaution of selecting an abundance of the best hickory wood in approximately correct sizes for sledge construction. Suitable tools had also been provided. Now, as the long winter with its months of darkness curtailed the time of outside movement, the box-house was refitted as a workshop. From eight to ten men were at the benches, eight hours each day, shaping and bending runners, fitting and lashing interchangeable cross bars and posts, and riveting the iron shoes. Thus the sledge parts were manufactured to possess the same facilities to fit not only all other sledges, but also other parts of the same sledge. If, therefore, part of a sledge should be broken, other parts of a discarded sledge could offer repair sections easily.

The general construction of this new sledge is easily understood from the various photographs presented. All joints were made elastic by seal-thong lashings. The sledges were twelve feet long and thirty inches wide; the runners had a width of an inch and an eighth. Each part and each completed sledge was thoroughly tested before it was finally loaded for the long run. For dog harness, the Greenland Eskimo pattern was adopted. But canine habits are such that when rations are reduced to minimum limits the leather strips disappear as food. To obviate this disaster, the shoulder straps were made of folds of strong canvas, while the traces were cut from cotton log line.

A boat is an important adjunct to every sledge expedition which hopes to venture far from its base of operations. It is a matter of necessity, even when following a coast line, as was shown by the mishap of Mylius Erickson, for if he had had a boat he would himself have returned to tell the story of the Danish Expedition to East Greenland.

Need for a boat comes with the changing conditions of the advancing season. Things must be carried for several months for a chance use in the last stages of the return. But since food supplies are necessarily limited, delay is fatal, and therefore, when open water prevents advance, a boat is so vitally necessary as to become a life preserver. Foolish indeed is the explorer who pays slight attention to this important problem.

The transportation of a boat, however, offers many serious difficulties. Nansen introduced the kayak, and most explorers since have followed his example. The Eskimo canoe serves the purpose very well, but to carry it for three months without hopeless destruction requires so tremendous an amount of energy as to make the task practically impossible.

Sectional boats, aluminum boats, skin floats and other devices had been tried, but to all there is the same fatal objection on a Polar trip, of impossible transportation. But it seems odd that the ordinary folding canvas boat has not been pressed into this service.