Chapter I: "Mush!"

The cry of command rang out on the frosty air.

"Mush!"

Again the surrounding ice echoed the word which seems, more than any other, to tell the whole story of the North.

At its repetition, my sturdy followers hurled their bulks against the trace-collars while a babel of exhortation shattered the silence. "Let's go!" "We're off." "Attaboy!"

The Traprock Polar Expedition was on its way!

We had reached the edge of the great polar-pack. Those of my readers whose knowledge of ice packs is limited to those which can be wrapped in an ordinary hand-towel can, of course, form no impression of the magnitude and desolation of the scene which lay before us. As far as the eye could see....

But I am far north of my narrative. It would be an obvious injustice to my companions and fellow-polarists to omit mention at this time of the personnel of our extraordinary expedition, the most complete and carefully organized that ever set out toward the Big Peg.

Let us go back, then, in memory to the eventful meeting of the Explorers Union, held in Cambridge on Friday, April 1st, 1921. I can see the picture with vivid distinctness, the shining bald-heads and snowy crowns of the aged members, o'er arched by the larger but no more dignified dome of the Rotunda itself, the bright spots of light on the polished mahogany table, the swift fingered secretary, who had gorgeous henna hair, I remember--I can see it all;--and I can hear clearly the voice of old Dr. Waxman, the President, (whose exploits in the Ant-Arctic will be well remembered,[2]) as he rose and said,

"Well then, gentlemen, it is settled. Traprock must go."

The company as one man echoed the President's remark.

"Traprock must go!"

With the sound of this verdict ringing in my ears I delivered a short speech of appreciation. Little did I realize at the time the sinister influences which had been at work to bring about the very result which so filled my heart with pride. Little did I know that among the men who sat by my side that evening sharing with me the hand and hip of friendship, passing me an occasional peanut from the store which the President was cracking with his gavel, little did I imagine that among them were some to whom the words "Traprock must go" meant a far different thing from what it did to me. But as old Tertullian has it, "_Nemo me impune lacessit_"--"What you don't know won't hurt you"; and so from a full heart I thanked them.

At the end of twenty minutes, President Waxman interrupted me to ask, "When can you start?"

I heard one of the older members whisper, "Not 'when can he start?' When can he stop?"

"Now." I answered with characteristic brevity, giving the whispering member a look which he will never forget.

The meeting broke up forthwith. Before leaving the Rotunda, Adolph Banderholtz, Secretary-for-Polar-Affairs of the Explorers Union (which I shall hereafter refer to as the E.U.) handed me a typewritten list of names.

"These are our nominations for the expedition," he said with his shallow smile. "You will find them admirably equipped in their respective departments. Good-bye."

TRIPLETT THE UNDAUNTED

Captain Ezra Triplett, the navigator of Dr. Traprock's metamorphic
yawl needs no introduction to students of marine accomplishment.
To lay-readers perhaps a brief preamble is in order. Born a
not-too-simple son of New Bedford, Mass., Triplett has climbed the
rope-ladder of success from cabin-boy to Captaincy, from poop-deck to
mast-head. Gifted with uncanny nautical skill this Captain Courageous
is equally at home on ice.

Seldom if ever has the camera been more successful in catching the
very soul of the sitter, who in this case is standing. But whether
_assis_ or _debout_ Ezra Triplett is always master of the situation.
The animals in the background are not dogs but Amoks, those wild
vulpines of the North which have been trained by hand to obey their
master's voice.

The whip, coiled snake-like about the Captain's friendly artics, is
an entirely superfluous emblem of authority, for this remarkable man
achieves his results by the power of the human eye alone. In this
connection it should be noted that Triplett is limited to a single
optic. The one on the right as one faces the photograph is phony,
the original having literally leaped out of its socket many years
ago during an exciting kangaroo hunt. The eye, rolling away into the
bush, was never recovered in spite of a handsome reward-notice in the
Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide press. Thus Triplett lost not only the
sight of the eye but the eye itself. What the Captain achieves with
his single orb is nothing short of amazing and we have frequently
seen him face-down such fearless fellow-men as George Jean Nathan
merely by turning towards them _his blind_ eye.

Both attitude and costume are superbly characteristic, the massive
oak-timbered frame filling to repletion the bearskin jerkin with
its practical one-man-top. As a protection for the nether limbs
Triplett invariably wore light woolen pajamas with gee-string exits
and entrances. This scant covering was ample even in the severest
weather, owing to the fact that Triplett's own limbs are clothed with
a heavy coat of natural fur which, in his own words, is "grown on the
place."

He extended a limp hand which I hurt as much as possible by using a peculiar grip taught me by an old swaboda in the Malay peninsula. He went deathly white and faded from my view. I fear I do not always realize my strength.

Banderholtz is one of the type of arm-chair explorers which I particularly detest. Everything he does is superficial. In the early days when airplanes were safer than they are now because they would not rise more than six feet from the ground, he gained a great reputation as a birdman on the strength of once having been up in a captive-balloon in the Bois de Boulogne.

But this is no place for personal animosities. I caught the midnight train to New York, rang for the Porter and insisted that my section be un-made and a table furnished. Now that the matter was settled I was burning with a desire to work out the details. All night I toiled away, the click of my typewriter being the only sound except an occasional curse from the occupants of nearby berths. An old gentleman in upper-seven disturbed me somewhat with his snoring but gradually the sound blended itself with the snorts of the sea-lions which I was already hearing in imagination and I became oblivious to all interruption. When the train pulled into Grand Central my preliminary work was complete. My various lists, personnel, food, equipment, scientific objects, etc. had all been sketched out. The remaining weeks of April were devoted to the detail of complete organization, all of which I attended to personally.

Since I have already spoken of the E.U. list of names, I may as well dispose of the subject at this time. Quite naturally it was composed, in the main, of scientific men, men famed each in his particular field. I knew them by their works, and a casual glance at the list convinced me that our expedition would compare with the best in its scientific departments.

The first name was that of Warburton Plock, whose reputation in anthropology, zoology and biology fitted him to size up and classify any living thing. Plock's work on simians and femurae is the accepted monkey-manual in most menageries. I shall never forget the impression it made upon me the first time I read it.

The important studies of cartography, oceanography, topography and kindred subjects were allotted to Elmer E. Miskin, of the E.U. library forces. Miskin was what one might call a self-made explorer. He had worked his way up from the bottom of the paper basket, through a long course in filing and cataloguing. While a boy in the grade schools of his native town of Peapack, N.J. he had shown early promise by winning five consecutive gold stars in map-drawing and one of his prize-winning creations with the Orange Mountains represented by caterpillars glued on the cardboard now hangs behind the door of the Principal's office of the Hooker Avenue School. This was his first experience in the field.

Three other names complete the E.U. list, Croyden Sloff, magnetician, electrician and victrologist, Winchester Wigmore, snow- and ice-expert and Bartholomew Dane, egyptologist.

It was with surprise that I saw the name of Warburton Plock. We had met frequently in the old days when we used to gather round the keg at the E.U. meetings and our feelings had always been antipathetic. But I resolved that no fancied grudges should cloud the sky of our venture and immediately wired Plock a cordial telegram saying, "Am counting on your loyal support and hope I shall get it."

It is hardly necessary to say that my own selections for travelling companions included my old friends Herman Swank, the artist, and Reg Whinney, scientist, whose loyalty and devotion during my South Sea travels have forged links of friendship which can never be broken. Swank's enthusiasm at the prospect of actually painting the aurora borealis from life was unbounded. He at once thought of his colleagues in the colorful modern school. "I'll have them skinned a mile," he cried.

Other men may possibly excel in special lines, but I am confident that as an all-round scientist, Whinney can give them all cards and spades. His fund of general information saved me thousands of dollars for he combined several people in one. For instance he knew quite enough about medicine to be our official doctor. As soon as he received the polar invitation he set about studying polar diseases, snow blindness, scurvy, chill-blains, frost-bite and so on. He was an expert photographer and got results from a 3-1/4 × 4-1/4 Kodak that surprised everybody including himself. He had also become keenly interested in radiography and brought a complete outfit aboard with him, using his own body as a spool upon which to coil his antennae until they could be rigged in a proper manner. Most men have two sides, but Whinney had at least a dozen. He combined many men in one. Way back in our college days I recall that he was taken on the Christmas trip of the Glee Club because he could play the banjo and he made the banjo-club because he could sing. He wasn't good at either but he averaged well.

In addition to Swank and Whinney, I made another selection based on painstaking thought. I asked my life-long friend, Sydney Freemantle Frissell, to go along as recreationist and entertainer. Northern expeditions, especially through the long hours of the Arctic night are very dull affairs. Along about midnight, with morning three months away, the party is apt to die. Then is when a man like Frissell is invaluable. He has no brains whatever, but the most amazing vitality and can wake up any assembly by sheer audacity. I deliberated a long time as to whether to get Ed Wynn or Frissell, but finally decided in favor of Frizzy as he could come and Wynn couldn't.

Needless to say, our Captain was the same staunch old oak-framed navigator, Ezra Triplett, who had gotten the Kawa into so many tight holes in the past.

"What ship?" he asked when I put it up to him.

"Kawa," I said.

"Done, by thunder," he roared.

Honest Ezra Triplett! Loyal, staunch friend, quaint, saturnine, creature that he is.

"Doc," he said, "I'd like darn well to take one of my wives along. It's gonter be kinder lonely up there in the ice with all you boys off gunnin'."

I smiled indulgently at the old man's foibles.

"Which one do you want to take?"

"The gal from Sausalito," he explained. "I ain't seen her in about a year, an' I'm gettin' kinder fed-up on ... you know ... Noo York."

I nodded. "We'll have to keep it secret. You know I've absolutely forbidden it. She can join us at St. Johns and come aboard as wardrobe woman. No one must suspect that she is your wife."

Triplett shifted his quid and slowly winked his false eye.

"She ain't," he said.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: "Ants of the Ant-Arctic" by W.W. Waxman, F.O.B.]

Chapter II

_Our triumphant departure. A man missing. Wigmore's gallant
embarkation. The Kawa herself. A new idea in construction. A few
boresome details._