BREAKING CAMP. PUSHING THE SLEDGES UP TO THE TIRED DOGS
Another dog played out that day and was shot, leaving me with thirty. At the end of this march we could see the mountains of Grant Land in the far distance to the south, and the sight thrilled us. It was like a vision of the shores of the home land to sea-worn mariners.
Again, the next day, we made a double march. Starting late in the afternoon we reached the sixth outward camp, "boiled the kettle," and had a light lunch; then plunged on again until early in the morning of the 20th, when we reached the fifth outward camp.
So far we had seemed to bear a charm which protected us from all difficulties and dangers. While Bartlett and Marvin and, as I found out later, Borup had been delayed by open leads, at no single lead had we been delayed more than a couple of hours. Sometimes the ice had been firm enough to carry us across; sometimes we had made a short detour; sometimes we halted for the lead to close; sometimes we used an ice-cake as an improvised ferry: but whatever the mode of our crossing, we had crossed without serious difficulty.
LAST CAMP ON THE ICE ON THE RETURN
It had seemed as if the guardian genius of the polar waste, having at last been vanquished by man, had accepted defeat and withdrawn from the contest.