He died alone, and he passed into the great unknown alone, bravely and honorably. He is the last of Earth's great martyrs; he is home; his work is done; he is where he longed to be; the Sailor is Home in the Sea. It is poor satisfaction to those that he left behind that his grave is the northern-most grave on the earth; but they realize that the sacrifice was not made in vain, for it was due to him that those who followed were able to keep the trail and reach the land again. The foolish boys, in accordance with Esquimo tradition, had unloaded all of Prof. Marvin's personal effects on the ice, so that his spirit should not follow them, and they hurried on back to land and to the ship, where they told their sad story.
CHAPTER XVIII
AFTER MUSK-OXEN—THE DOCTOR'S SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION
From the time of my arrival at the Roosevelt, for nearly three weeks, my days were spent in complete idleness. I would catch a fleeting glimpse of Commander Peary, but not once in all of that time did he speak a word to me. Then he spoke to me in the most ordinary matter-of-fact way, and ordered me to get to work. Not a word about the North Pole or anything connected with it; simply, "There is enough wood left, and I would like to have you make a couple of sledges and mend the broken ones. I hope you are feeling all right." There was enough wood left and I made three sledges, as well as repaired those that were broken.
The Commander was still running things and he remained the commander to the last minute; nothing escaped him, and when the time came to slow-down on provisions, he gave the orders, and we had but two spare meals a day to sustain us. The whole expedition lived on travel rations from before the time we left Cape Sheridan until we had reached Sidney, N. S., and like the keen-fanged hounds, we were always ready and fit.
It was late in May when Prof. MacMillan and Mr. Borup, with their Esquimo companions returned from Cape Jesup, where they had been doing highly important scientific work, taking soundings out on the sea-ice north of the cape as high as 84° 15' north, and also at the cape. They had made a trip that was record-breaking; they had visited the different cairns made by Lockwood and Brainard and by Commander Peary, and they had also captured and brought into the ship a musk-ox calf; and they had most satisfactorily demonstrated their fitness as Arctic explorers, having followed the Commander's orders implicitly and secured more than the required number of tidal-readings and soundings.
Prof. MacMillan, with Jack Barnes, a sailor, and Kudlooktoo, left for Fort Conger early in June, and continued the work of tidal-observations. They rejoined the Roosevelt just before she left Cape Sheridan. A little later in the month, Borup went to Clements Markham Inlet to hunt musk-oxen, and from there he went to Cape Columbia, where he erected the cairn containing the record of the last and successful expedition of the "Peary Arctic Club." The cairn was a substantial pile of rocks, surmounted by a strong oaken guide-post, with arms pointing "North 413 miles to the Pole"; "East, to Cape Morris K. Jesup, 275 miles"; "West to Cape Thomas H. Hubbard, 225 miles"; while the southern arm pointed south, but to no particular geographical spot; it was labeled "Cape Columbia." Underneath the arms of the guide-post, which had been made by Mate Gushue, was a small, glass-covered, box-like arrangement, in which was encased the record of Peary's successful journey to the Pole, and the roster of the expedition, my name included. From the cross-bars, guys of galvanized wire were stretched and secured to heavy rocks, to help sustain the monument from the fury of the storms. Borup did good work, photographed the result, and the picture of the cairn, when exhibited, proved very satisfactory to the Commander.
Dr. Goodsell with two teams, and the Esquimo men, Keshungwah and Tawchingwah, left the ship on May 27, to hunt in the Lake Hazen and Ruggles River regions. They were successful in securing thirteen musk-oxen in that neighborhood, and in Bellows Valley they shot a number of the "Peary" caribou, the species "Rangifer Pearyi," a distinct class of reindeer inhabiting that region.
On the return of Dr. Goodsell, he told of his fascinating experiences in that wonderland. Leaving the Roosevelt, he had turned inland at Black Cliff Bay. Past the glaciers he went with his little party, down the Bellows Valley to the Ruggles River, an actual stream of clear-running water, alive with the finest of salmon trout. Adopting the Esquimo methods, he fished for these speckled beauties with joyful success. Here he rounded up and shot the herd of musk-oxen, and here he bagged his caribou. He was in a hunter's paradise and made no haste to return, but crossed overland to Discovery Harbor and the barn-like structure of Fort Conger, the headquarters of General Greely's "Lady Franklin Bay Expedition" of 1882-1883. Professor MacMillan was on his way to Fort Conger and it was with much surprise, on arriving there, that he found that Dr. Goodsell had reached it an hour before him. It was an unexpected meeting and quite a pleasure to the Professor to find the Doctor there, ready to offer him the hospitality of the fort.