The day was beautiful. Had our sense of appreciation not been blunted by accumulated fatigue we should have greatly enjoyed the play of light and color in the ever-changing scene of sparkle. But in our condition it was but an inducement to keep the eyes open and to prolong interest long enough to dispel the growing complaint of aching muscles.
Ah-we-lah and E-tuk-i-shook were soon lost in profound sleep, the only comfort in their hard lives. I remained awake, as had been my habit for many preceding days, to get nautical observations. My longitude calculations lined us at 94° 3ʹ. At noon the sun's altitude was carefully set on the sextant, and the latitude, quickly reduced, gave 89° 31ʹ. The drift had carried us too far east, but our advance was encouraging.
I put down the instrument, wrote the reckonings in my book. Then I gazed, with a sort of fascination, at the figures. My heart began to thump wildly. Slowly my brain whirled with exultation. I arose jubilant. We were only 29 miles from the North Pole!
I suppose I created quite a commotion about the little camp. E-tuk-i-shook, aroused by the noise, awoke and rubbed his eyes. I told him that in two average marches we should reach the "tigi-shu"—the big nail. He sprang to his feet and shouted with joy. He kicked Ah-we-lah, none too gently, and told him the glad news.
Together they went out to a hummock, and through glasses, sought for a mark to locate so important a place as the terrestrial axis! If but one sleep ahead, it must be visible! So they told me, and I laughed. The sensation of laughing was novel. At first I was quite startled. I had not laughed for many days. Their idea was amusing, but it was eminently sensible from their standpoint and knowledge.
I tried to explain to them that the Pole is not visible to the eye, and that its position is located only by a repeated use of the various instruments. Although this was quite beyond their comprehension the explanation entirely satisfied their curiosity. They burst out in hurrahs of joy. For two hours they chanted, danced and shouted the passions of wild life. Their joy, however, was in the thought of a speedy turning back homeward, I surmised.
This, however, was the first real sign of pleasure or rational emotion which they had shown for several weeks. For some time I had entertained the fear that we no longer possessed strength to return to land. This unbridled flow of vigor dispelled that idea. My heart throbbed with gladness. A font of new strength seemed to gush forth within me. Considering through what we had gone, I now marvel at the reserve forces latent in us, and I sometimes feel that I should write, not of human weakness, but a new gospel of human strength.
With the Pole only twenty-nine miles distant, more sleep was quite impossible. We brewed an extra pot of tea, prepared a favorite broth of pemmican, dug up a surprise of fancy biscuits and filled up on good things to the limit of the allowance for our final feast days. The dogs, which had joined the chorus of gladness, were given an extra lump of pemmican. A few hours more were agreeably spent in the tent. Then we started out with new spirit for the uttermost goal of our world.
Bounding joyously forward, with a stimulated mind, I reviewed the journey. Obstacle after obstacle had been overcome. Each battle won gave a spiritual thrill, and courage to scale the next barrier. Thus had been ever, and was still, in the unequal struggles between human and inanimate nature, an incentive to go onward, ever onward, up the stepping-stones to ultimate success. And now, after a life-denying struggle in a world where every element of Nature is against the life and progress of man, triumph came with steadily measured reaches of fifteen miles a day!
We were excited to fever heat. Our feet were light on the run. Even the dogs caught the infectious enthusiasm. They rushed along at a pace which made it difficult for me to keep a sufficient advance to set a good course. The horizon was still eagerly searched for something to mark the approaching boreal center. But nothing unusual was seen. The same expanse of moving seas of ice, on which we had gazed for five hundred miles, swam about us as we drove onward.