Then, in a half gale blowing from the northwest and charged with snow, they turned their backs upon me and started upon the return track. They carried little but ammunition, because we had learned that plenty of game was to be provided along the return courses.
Even after they were out of sight in the drifting snowstorm their voices came cheerily back to me. The faithful savages had followed me until told that I could use them no longer; and it was not only for their simple pay of knives and guns, but because of a real desire to be helpful. Their parting enforced a pang of loneliness.[10]
With a snow-charged blast in our faces it was impossible for us to start immediately after the Eskimos returned. Withdrawing to the snow igloo, we entered our bags and slept a few hours longer. At noon the horizon cleared. The wind veered to the southwest and came with an endurable force. Doubly rationed the night before, the dogs were not to be fed again for two days. The time had come to start. We quickly loaded our sleds. Hitching the dogs, we let the whips fall, and with bounds they leaped around deep ice grooves in the great paleocrystic floes.
Our journey was begun. Swept of snow by the force of the preceding storm, the rough ice crisply cracked under the swift speed of our sleds. Even on this uneven surface the dogs made such speed that I kept ahead of them only with difficulty. Their barking pealed about us and re-echoed from the black cliffs behind. Dashing about transparent ultramarine gorges, and about the base of miniature mountains of ice, we soon came into a region of undulating icy hills. The hard irregularity of the ice at times endangered our sleds. We climbed over ridges like walls. We jumped dangerous crevasses, keeping slightly west by north; the land soon sank in the rear of us. Drifting clouds and wind-driven snows soon screened the tops of black mountains. Looking behind, I saw only a swirling, moving scene of dull white and nebulous gray. On every side ice hummocks heaved their backs and writhed by. Behind me followed four snugly loaded sleds, drawn by forty-four selected dogs, under the lash of four expert Eskimo drivers. The dogs pranced; the joyous cries of the natives rose and fell. My heart leaped; my soul sang. I felt my blood throb with each gallop of the leaping dog teams. The sound of their feet pattering on the snow, the sight of their shaggy bodies tossing forward, gave me joy. For every foot of ice covered, every minute of constant action, drew me nearer, ever nearer, to my goal.
Our first run was auspicious; it seemed to augur success. By the time we paused to rest we had covered twenty-six miles.
We pitched camp on a floeberg of unusual height; about us were many big hummocks, and to the lee of these banks of hardened snow. Away from land it is always more difficult to find snow suitable for cutting building blocks. There, however, was an abundance. We busily built, in the course of an hour, a comfortable snow igloo. Into it we crept, grateful for shelter from the piercing wind.
The dogs curled up and went to sleep without a call, as if they knew that there would be no food until to-morrow. My wild companions covered their faces with their long hair and sank quietly into slumber. For me sleep was impossible. The whole problem of our campaign had again to be carefully studied, and final plans made, not only to reach our ultimate destination, but for the two returning Eskimos and for the security of the things left at Annoatok, and also to re-examine the caches left en route for our return. These must be protected as well as possible against the bears and wolves.
Already I had begun to think of our return to land. It was difficult at this time even to approximate any probable course. Much would depend upon conditions to be encountered in the northward route. Although we had left caches of supplies with the object of returning along Nansen Sound, into Cannon Fiord and over Arthur Land, I entertained grave doubts of our ability to return this way. I knew that if the ice should drift strongly to the east we might not be given the choice of working out our own return. For, in such an event, we should perhaps be carried helplessly to Greenland, and should have to seek a return either along the east or the west coast.
This drift, in my opinion, would not necessarily mean dangerous hardships, for the musk oxen would keep us alive to the west, and to the east it seemed possible to reach Shannon Island, where the Baldwin-Zeigler expeditions had abandoned a large cache of supplies. It appeared not improbable, also, that a large land extension might offer a safe return much further west. I fell asleep while pondering over these things. By morning the air was clear of frost crystals. It was intensely cold, not only because of a temperature of 56° below zero, Fahrenheit, but a humid chill which pierced to the very bones. A light breeze came from the west. The sun glowed in a freezing field of blue.
Hitching our dogs, we started. For several hours we seemed to soar over the white spaces. Then the ice changed in character, the expansive, thick fields of glacier-like ice giving way to floes of moderate size and thickness. These were separated by zones of troublesome crushed ice thrown into high-pressure lines, which offered serious barriers. Chopping the pathway with an ice axe, we managed to make fair progress. We covered twenty-one miles of our second run on the Polar sea. I expected, at the beginning of this final effort, to send back by this time the two extra men, Koo-loo-ting-wah and In-u-gi-to, who had remained to help us over the rough pack-ice. But progress had not been as good as I had expected; so, although we could hardly spare any food to feed their dogs, the two volunteered to push along for another day without dog food.