We next landed about eighty tons of coal, so that, in case we should have to live in the box houses, there would be plenty of fuel. At that time of the year it was not very cold. On the 8th of September the thermometer stood at 12 above zero, the next day at 4.
The heavier cases, containing the tins of bacon, pemmican (the condensed meat food used in the Arctic), flour, et cetera, were utilized ashore like so many blocks of granite in constructing three houses, about fifteen feet by thirty. All the supplies were especially packed for this purpose, in boxes of specified dimensions—one of the innumerable details which made for the success of the expedition. In building the houses the tops of the boxes were placed inside, the covers removed, and the contents taken out as needed, as from a shelf, the whole house being one large grocery.
The roofs were made of sails thrown over boat booms or spars, and later the walls and roof were banked in solidly with snow. Stoves were set up, so that, if everything went well, the houses could be used as workshops during the winter.
So here we were, safely bestowed at Cape Sheridan, and the prize seemed already in our grasp. The contingencies which had blocked our way in 1906 were all provided for on this last expedition. We knew just what we had to do, and just how to do it. Only a few months of waiting, the fall hunting, and the long, dark winter were all that lay between me and the final start. I had the dogs, the men, the experience, a fixed determination (the same impulse which drove the ships of Columbus across the trackless western sea)—and the end lay with that Destiny which favors the man who follows his faith and his dream to the last breath.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WINTER QUARTERS
When the removal of supplies had lightened the Roosevelt so much that Bartlett got her considerably farther in shore, she lay with her nose pointing almost true north. It cheered us, for this was her constant habit. It seemed almost like the purpose of a living creature. Whenever on the upward voyage—either this time or on her first trip in 1905—the ship was beset in the ice so that we lost control of her, she always swung around of her own accord and pointed north. When twisting through the ice, if we got caught when the ship was headed east or west, it was only a little while before the pressure would swing her round till once more she looked northward. Even on the return journey, in 1906, it was the same—as if the ship realized she had not accomplished her purpose and wanted to go back. The sailors noticed it, and used to talk about it. They said the Roosevelt was not satisfied, that she knew she had not done her work.
When we got the vessel as near the shore as possible, the ship's people began to make her ready for the winter. The engine-room force was busy blowing down the boilers, putting the machinery out of commission, removing every drop of water from the pipes and elbows so the cold of winter should not burst them; and the crew was busy taking down the sails, slacking off the rigging, so the contraction from the intense cold of winter should not cause damage, with a thousand and one details of like character.
Before the sails were taken down, they were all set, that they might be thoroughly dried out by sun and wind. The ship was a beautiful sight, held fast in the embrace of the ice and with her cables out, but with every sail filled with wind like a yacht in a race.