THE TRANS-BOREAL DASH BEGINS
BY FORCED EFFORTS AND THE USE OF AXES SPEED IS MADE OVER THE LAND—ADHERING PACK ICE OF POLAR SEA—THE MOST DIFFICULT TRAVEL OF THE PROPOSED JOURNEY SUCCESSFULLY ACCOMPLISHED—REGRETFUL PARTING WITH THE ESKIMOS
XIII
Five Hundred Miles From the Pole
Svartevoeg is a great cliff, the northernmost point of Heiberg Land, which leaps precipitously into the Polar sea. Its negroid face of black scarred rocks frowns like the carven stone countenance of some hideously mutilated and enraged Titan savage. It expresses, more than a human face could, the unendurable sufferings of this region of frigid horrors. It is five hundred and twenty miles from the North Pole.
From this point I planned to make my dash in as straight a route as might be possible. Starting from our camp at Annoatok late in February, when the curtain of night was just beginning to lift, when the chill of the long winter was felt at its worst, we had forced progress through deep snows, over land and frozen seas, braving the most furious storms of the season and traveling despite baffling darkness, and had covered in less than a month about four hundred miles—nearly half the distance between our winter camp and the Pole.
Arriving at land's end my heart had cause for gratification. We had weathered the worst storms of the year. The long bitter night had now been lost. The days lengthened and invaded with glitter the decreasing nights. The sun glowed more radiantly daily, rose higher and higher to a continued afterglow in cheery blues, and sank for periods briefer and briefer in seas of running color. Our hopes, like those of all mankind, had risen with the soul-lifting sun. We had made our progress mainly at the expense of the land which we explored, for the game en route had furnished food and clothing.
The supplies we had brought with us from Annoatok were practically untouched. We had stepped in overfed skins, were fired by a resolution which was recharged by a strength bred of feeding upon abundant raw and wholesome meat. Eating to repletion on unlimited game, our bodies were kept in excellent trim by the exigencies of constant and difficult traveling.
As a man's mental force is the result of yesteryears' upbuilding, so his strength of to-day is the result of last week's eating. With the surge of ambition which had been formulating for twenty years, and my body in best physical shape for the supreme test, the Pole now seemed almost near.
As the great cliffs of Svartevoeg rose before us my heart leaped. I felt that the first rung in the ladder of success had been climbed, and as I stood under the black cliffs of this earth's northernmost land I felt that I looked through the eyes of long experience. Having reached the end of Nansen Sound, with Svartevoeg on my left, and the tall, scowling cliffs of Lands-Lokk on my right, I viewed for the first time the rough and heavy ice of the untracked Polar sea, over which, knowing the conditions of the sea ice, I anticipated the most difficult part of our journey lay. Imagine before you fields of crushed ice, glimmering in the rising sunlight with shooting fires of sapphire and green; fields which have been slowly forced downward by strong currents from the north, and pounded and piled in jagged mountainous heaps for miles about the land. Beyond this difficult ice, as I knew, lay more even fields, over which traveling, saving the delays of storms and open leads, would be comparatively easy. To encompass this rough prospect was the next step in reaching my goal. I felt that no time must be lost. At this point I was now to embark upon the Polar sea; the race for my life's ambition was to begin here; but first I had finally to resolve on the details of my campaign.
I decided to reduce my party to the smallest possible number consistent with the execution of the problem in hand. In addition, for greater certainty of action over the unknown regions beyond, I now definitely resolved to simplify the entire equipment. An extra sled was left at the cache at this point to insure a good vehicle for our return in case the two sleds which we were to take should be badly broken en route. I decided to take only two men on the last dash. I had carefully watched and studied every one of my party, and had already selected E-tuk-i-shook and Ah-we-lah, two young Eskimos, each about twenty years old, as best fitted to be my sole companions in the long run of destiny.