Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1909-09-17

- |II II I|I
land before tie NEXT spring tide, & ana
We must strain every nerve I'd do 10.
Return tourney Begun.
4 had q brief talk with NV men,
From now on II was To be q big travel;
little sleep and q hustle every minute.
We would try, I told them, to double
march on the return, that is, Ito start
and cover one OF our northward8
marches, make tea and eat our lunch
con con y IN the igloos, then cover another
march. eat and sleep few hours, and
repeat this daily.
AS matter OF fact, we nearly did
this, covering regularly on our return
Journey i've outward marches In three
return marches. Just as long as we
could hold the trail We could double
our speed, and We need waste no time
in building new igloos. 7sss
Every day that we gained on the RS
turn lessened the chances or again
destroying the track Just above the
87th parallel was q region some 80.
miles wide which caused me consider
able uneasiness. Twelve hours OF.
strong easterly, westerly or northerly
winds would make this region an open
sea. In the afternoon of the 7th we
started on our return, having double
fed the dogs, repaired the sledges for
the last time and discarded all our.
spare clothing to tighten the loads. 4.
Five miles from the pole a narrow
crack filled with recent ice through!
which we are able to work q hole with
a pickax enabled me to make a sound
Ing. All my wire, 1900 fathoms, was
sent down, but there was no bottom,
in pulling up, the wire parted a few
fathoms from the! surface, and lead
and wire went to the bottom on
went reel and hardle, Tightening the
sledges still further. We had no
more use for them now.
Three marches brought us back to
the igloos where the captain turned
back. The last march was in the wild
sweep of northerly gale, with drift
ing snow and the Ice rocking under us
as we dashed over it. South of where
Marvin had turned back we came to
where his party had built several ig-
ZOOS while delayed by open leads. Still
further south we found where the cap
tain had been held up by an open lead
and obliged to camp. Fortunately the
movement of these leads was simply
open and shut, and it took consider
able water motion to fault the trail
seriously.
While Captain Marvin, ard as /
found out later, Borup, had been de-
layed by open leads, we seemed to
bear a patent charm, and at no single
lead were we delayed more than q
couple Of hours Sometimes the ice
was fast and firm enough to carry us
across, sometimes short detour,
sometimes a brief halt for the lead
to close, sometimes an fmprovised
ferry on the ice cake, kept the trail
without difficulty down to the tenth
outward march.
Igloos there disappeared completely
and the entire region was unrecogniz,
able. Where on the outward journey
had been narrow cracks there were
now broad leads, some Of them over
five miles in width, caught over with
young Ice.
Pick Up Old Trail.
Here again fortune favored US and
no pronounced movement Of the ice
having taken place since the captain
passed, we had his trail to follow. W.
picked up the old trail again north O
the. seventh igloos, followed it beyond
the fifth and at the big lead lost i
finally.
From here we followed the captain,
trail and on April % our sledge'
passed up the vertical edge of thu
Glacier fringe, a little west of Gaps
Columbia. When the last sledge cam,
Iup, I thought my Eskimos had gont
crazy They yelled and called ant
danced themselves helpless. Al
| Ootah sat down on his sledge he re
marked in Eskimo: "The devil il
asleep or having trouble with his wit,
or we never should have come bacl
so easily"
A few hours later we arrived q
Crane City, under the bluffs of Cap
I Columbia, and after putting four lbs
Of pemmican into each Of the faithful
dogs to keep them quiet, we had a
last our chance to sleep.
/ Never shall I forget that sleep a
| Cape Columbia. 1t was sleep, sleer
/ then turn over and sleep again. w
1 slept gloriously, with never though
4. Of the morrow or Of having to wall
1 and, too, with no thought that Their
4 was to be never night more OF blind
ing headache. Cold water to
parched throat is nothing compare
/ with sleep to a numbed, fatigued brai
i and body. Ii
Faithful Dogs Sleep Also.
Two days we spent here in sleepin
] and drying our clothes. Then for tn
ship. Our dogs, like ourselves, ha
not been hungry when we arrived, bu
! simply lifeless with fatigue. The
4 were different animals now and tn