So thoroughly delighted were we with these goggles that later we wore them even in igloos while asleep, with the double object of screening the strong light which passes through the eyelids and of keeping the forehead warm.
On our march in the early part of the afternoon of the 24th the weather proved good. The ice, though newly crevassed, improved as we advanced. The late start spread our day's work close to the chill of midnight. When we started the wind blew kindly. With glad hearts we forged forward without delays. On the ice I heard the soft patter of swift dog feet and the dashing, cutting progress of the sleds. As a scene viewed from a carousel, the field of ice swept around me in our dizzy, twisting progress. We swept resistlessly onward for twenty-three miles. As we had taken a zigzag course to follow smooth ice, I therefore recorded only eighteen miles to our credit.
The night was beautiful. The sun sank into a purple haze. Soon, in the magic of the atmosphere, appeared three suns of prismatic colors. These settled slowly into the frozen sea and disappeared behind that persistent haze of obscuring mist which always rests over the pack when the sun is low. During the night a narrow band of orange was flung like a ribbon across the northern skies. The pack surface glowed with varying shades of violet, lilac and pale purplish blue. Many such splendid sights are to be constantly seen in the Arctic. Although I reveled in it now, the time was soon to come when weariness and hunger numbed my faculties into a dreary torpor in which the splendor was not seen.
Signs appeared of a gale from the west before we were quite ready to camp. Little sooty clouds with ragged edges suddenly began to cover the sky, scurrying at an alarming pace. Beyond us a huge smoky volume of cloud blackened the pearly glitter.
Suitable camping ice was sought. In the course of an hour we built an igloo. We made the structure stronger than usual on account of the threatening storm. We constructed double tiers of snow blocks to the windward. A little water was thrown over the top to cement the blocks. We fastened the dogs to the lee of hummocks. The sleds were securely lashed and fastened to the ice.
We expected a hurricane, and had not to wait to taste its fury. Before we were at rest in our bags the wind lashed the snows with a force inconceivable. With rushing drift, the air thickened. Dogs and sleds in a few minutes were buried under banks of snow and great drifts encircled the igloo. The cemented blocks of our dome withstood the sweep of the blast well. Yet, now and then, small holes were burrowed through the snow wall by the sharp wind. Drift entered and covered us. I lay awake for hours. I felt the terrible oppression of that raging, life-sucking vampire force sweeping over the desolate world. Disembodied things—the souls of those, perhaps, who had perished here—seemed frenziedly calling me in the wind. I felt under me the surge of the sweeping, awful sea. I felt the desolation of this stormy world within my shuddering soul; but, withal, I throbbed with a determination to assert the supremacy of living man over these blind, insensate forces; to prove that the living brain and palpitating muscle of a finite though conscious creature could vanquish a hostile Nature which creates to kill. I burned to justify those who had died here; to fulfill by proxy their hopes; to set their calling souls at rest. The storm waked in me an angry, challenging determination.
Early in the morning of the 25th the storm ceased as suddenly as it had come. A stillness followed which was appalling. It seemed as if the storm had heard my thoughts and paused to contemplate some more dreadful onslaught. The dogs began to howl desperately, as if attacked by a bear. We rushed out of our igloo, seeking guns. There was no approaching creature. It was, however, a signal of serious distress that we had heard. The dogs were in acute misery. The storm-driven snows had buried and bound them in unyielding ice. They had partly uncovered themselves. United by trace and harness, they were imprisoned in frozen masses. Few of them could even rise and stretch. They were in severe torment.
We hurriedly freed their traces and beat the cemented snows from their furs with sticks. Released, they leaped about gladly, their cries, curling tails and pointed noses telling of gratitude. While we danced about, stretching our limbs and rubbing our hands to get up circulation, the sun rose over the northern blue, flushing the newly driven snows with warm tones. The temperature during the storm had risen to only 26° below, but soon the thermometer sank rapidly below 40°. The west was still smoky and the weather did not seem quite settled. As it was still too early to start, we again slipped into the bags and sought quiet slumber.
As yet the dreadful insomnia which was to rob me of rest on my journey had not come, and I slept with the blissful soundness of a child. I must have been asleep several hours, when, of a sudden, I opened my eyes.
Terror gripped my heart. Loud explosive noises reverberated under my head. It seemed as though bombs were torn asunder in the depths of the cold sea beneath me. I lay still, wondering if I were dreaming. The sounds echoingly died away. Looking about the igloo, I detected nothing unusual. I saw Ah-we-lah and E-tuk-i-shook staring at me with wide-open frightened eyes. I arose and peeped through the eye port. The fields of ice without reflected the warm light of the rising sun in running waves of tawny color. The ice was undisturbed. An unearthly quiet prevailed. Concluding that the ice was merely cracking under the sudden change of temperature, in quite the usual harmless manner, I turned over again, reassuring my companions, and promptly fell asleep.