THE FAST TREK BACK TO LAND The long trail was finished, the work was done, and there was only left for us to return and tell the tale of the doing. Reaction had set in, and it was with quavering voice that Commander Peary gave the order to break camp. Already the strain of the hard upward-journey was beginning to tell, and after the first two marches back, he was practically a dead weight, but do not think that we could have gotten back without him, for it was due to the fact that he was with us, and that we could depend upon him to direct and order us, that we were able to keep up the break-neck pace that enabled us to cover three of our upward marches on one of our return marches, and we never forgot that he was still the heart and head of the party. It was broad daylight and getting brighter, and accordingly I knew little fear, though I When we "hit the beach for fair" it was early in the morning of April 23, 1909, nearly seventeen days since we had left the Pole, but such a seventeen days of haste, toil, and misery as cannot be comprehended by the mind. We who experienced it, Commander Peary, the Esquimos, and myself, look back to it as to a horrid nightmare, and to describe it is impossible for me. Commander Peary had taken the North Pole by conquest, in the face of almost in The long quest for the North Pole is over and the awful space that separated man from the Ultima Thule has been bridged. There is no more beyond; from Cape Columbia to Cape Chelyuskin, the route northward to the Pole, and southward again to the plains of Asia, is an open book and the geographical mind is at rest. We found the abandoned igloos of Crane City and realized that Captain Bartlett had reached the land safely. The damage due to the action of the storms was not material. We made the necessary repairs, and in a few minutes tea was boiled and rations eaten, and we turned in for sleep. For practically all of the two days following, that was what we did: sleep and eat; men and dogs thoroughly exhausted; and we slept the sleep of the just, without apprehensions or misgivings. Our toboggan from the Pole was ended. Different from all other trips, we had not on this one been maddened by the pangs of hunger, but instead we felt the effects of lack of sleep, and brain- and body-fatigue. After reaching the land again, I gave a keen searching look at each member of the party, and I realized the strain they had been under. Instead of the plump, round countenances I knew so well, I saw lean, gaunt faces, seamed and wrinkled, the faces of old men, not those of boys, but in their eyes still shone the spark of resolute determination. Commander Peary's face was lined and When I reached the ship again and gazed into my little mirror, it was the pinched and wrinkled visage of an old man that peered out at me, but the eyes still twinkled and life was still entrancing. This wizening of our features was due to the strain of travel and lack of sleep; we had enough to eat, and I have only mentioned it to help impress the fact that the journey to the Pole and back is not to be regarded as a pleasure outing, and our so-called jaunt was by no means a cake-walk. |