Our debate was a little disputatious. Goritz was quite immovably for returning that winter, executing as much of a littoral survey as we could, to return another season with an equipped expedition, trusting to get back to Barrow, with the dogs, sledge, kayak and launch, and with meat stores from the Bos hopkinsi. The Professor vehemently and feverishly protested. Here we were on the brink of world-convulsing wonders. To decline the invitation so miraculously extended to us was flying in the face of all recorded traditions of exploration. It was an ignominious flight from insignificant dangers. He knew that beyond that portentous circle of peaks lay an inverted cone holding within it warmth and civilization.
I think Goritz felt the appeal, but he was sagacious, a prudent man, and had no vainglorious desire to appropriate the forthcoming discoveries, which the Professor gloated over, for himself. He shook his head energetically. Then Spruce Hopkins, who with myself had only interjected questions and inquiring comments, and who with me was fascinated by the Professor’s predictions and promises, suggested a compromise.
“My friends, I’m sort o’ on the outside of this argument, though I guess my skin will get as much punishment, either way, as any one of you. Can’t you come to terms on this easy ground? Get up there,” and he waved his hand towards the serene splendid domes in their terrible beauty far above us, “and if the land goes down, as we might say hole-wise, we’ll stick, but if it goes straight, level, or up, why we’ll beat it home again. That’s sense Goritz, and I guess, Professor, it’s philosophy too.”
This jocularity relieved the tension superbly, and whether Goritz and the Professor were quite clear as to how the provision should be interpreted, Goritz consented to make the attempt to reach “the rim,” as the Professor called it.
The next days were days of anxious preparation. It was no child’s play scaling that natural fortress, and within its labyrinth of parapets, bastions, moats, and demi-lunes, ramparts and ditches what unforeseen dangers lurked! Our chief concern was our stores; the inroads made upon them by the storm was serious, and the inconvenience of starving on the “rim,” in sight of the promised land was disturbing. Our campaign would consist of making caches of meat on the uplands, taking our condensed food, tea and coffee on our backs, making forced marches to the summit, reconnoitering and plunging on ahead, if unanimous in that, or else tumbling back, and setting our faces homeward. Homeward—the word seemed a mockery in that strange and hidden corner of the earth.
Another thing happened, though not quite unexpected. The wind had shifted to the west, bringing loose drifting ice and some hulking floebergs, and the squally twists, the livid streaks in the sky, and the sun’s sepulchral pallor had indicated some rising uneasiness skyward. The change came good and plenty later. The wind rose almost to a tornado, though there was no snow or rain, just a bitter cold searching wind. It smote the mountains. We could see the sky-rocketing volley of snow on their sides, and noted too that towards their tops there was no disturbance, indicating a semi-icy condition of the snow there, perhaps better, perhaps worse for going. And now in the turning of a hand the crowding ice packs were back. As far as we could see their humps and fields spread everlastingly, and the chorus of groans, wheezes, and queer hushing sounds that they all sent up was astonishing.
Hopkins shot a bear, before the storm attained its top-notch of fury, which brought much cheerfulness to the camp. I never shall forget it. It was funny too; it might have been just as tragic. He and I were off to the west, reconnoitering for a possible easier entrance to the “rim,” when Hopkins caught my arm nervously, and pointed out over the groaning packs, and said he saw something moving. I could not see it. We ventured out a little way on some near shore ice and were behind a slight pressure ridge, when a shockingly coarse growl issued from the other side and a moment later a big polar bear surmounted the pile, and laying both its front paws on the blocks, over which its face rose, most whimsically recalled the emergence of a preacher in high pulpit. We were pretty well taken aback, but Hopkins slipped off his usual doggerel, sotto voce however—while the bear watched us critically—
“My only son was big and fine
And I was proud that he was mine,
He looked through eyes that were divine—