the ice has formed thick enough to bear the
loaded sledges going at full speed. Or, one may search for a cake of
ice, or hack out a cake with pickaxes, which can be used as a ferry-boat
on which to transport the sledges and teams across.

But all these means go for naught when the "big lead," which marks the
edge of the continental shelf where it dips down into the Arctic Ocean,
is in one of its tantrums, opening just wide enough to keep a continual
zone of open water or impracticable young ice in the center, as occurred
on our upward journey of 1906 and the never-to-be-forgotten return
journey of that expedition, when this lead nearly cut us off forever
from life itself.

A lead might have opened right through our camp, or through one of the
snow igloos, when we were sleeping on the surface of the polar sea.
Only--it didn't.

Should the ice open across the bed platform of an igloo, and precipitate
its inhabitants into the icy water below, they would not readily drown,
because of the buoyancy of the air inside their fur clothing. A man
dropping into the water in this way might be able to scramble onto the
ice and save himself; but with the thermometer at 50 deg. below zero it
would not be a pleasant contingency.

This is the reason why I have never used a sleeping-bag when out on the
polar ice. I prefer to have my legs and arms free, and to be ready for
any emergency at a moment's notice. I never go to sleep when out on the
sea ice without my mittens on, and if I pull my arms inside my sleeves I
pull my mittens in too, so as to be ready for instant action. What
chance would a man in a sleeping-bag have, should he suddenly wake to
find himself in the water?

The difficulties and hardships of a journey to the North Pole are too
complex to be summed up in a paragraph. But, briefly stated, the worst
of them are: the ragged and mountainous ice over which the traveler must
journey with his heavily loaded sledges; the often terrific wind, having
the impact of a wall of water, which he must march against at times; the
open leads already described, which he must cross and recross, somehow;
the intense cold, sometimes as low as 60 deg. below zero, through which he
must--by fur clothing and constant activity--keep his flesh from
freezing; the difficulty of dragging out and back over the ragged and
"lead" interrupted trail enough pemmican, biscuit, tea, condensed milk,
and liquid fuel to keep sufficient strength in his body f