be, "Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof," we ardently hoped there might not be violent winds until
we were south of this zone again on the return.

The next march was to be Bartlett's last, and he let himself out to do
his best. The going was fairly good, but the weather was thick. There
was a strong northerly wind blowing full in our faces, bitter and
insistent, and the temperature was in the minus thirties. But this
northerly wind, though hard to struggle against, was better than an
easterly or westerly one, either of which would have set us adrift in
open water, while, as it was, the wind was closing up every lead behind
us and thus making things easier for Bartlett's supporting party on its
return. True, the wind pressure was forcing to the south the ice over
which we traveled, and thus losing us miles of distance; but the
advantage of frozen leads was more than compensation for this loss.

So good was Bartlett's pace during the last half of the march that if I
stopped an instant for any purpose I had to jump on a sledge or run, to
catch up, and during the last few miles I walked beside Bartlett in
advance. He was very sober and anxious to go further; but the program
was for him to go back from here in command of the fourth supporting
party, and we did not have supplies enough for an increase in the main
party. The food which he and his two Eskimos and dog teams would have
consumed between this point and the Pole, on the upward and return
journeys, might mean that we would all starve before we could reach the
land again.

Had it been clear we should undoubtedly have covered twenty-five miles
in this march; but it is difficult to break a trail in thick weather as
rapidly as in clear, and this day netted us only twenty miles. We knew
that if we were not on or close to the 88th parallel at the end of this
march, it would be because the northern winds of the past two days had
set the ice south, crushing up the young ice in the leads between us and
the land.

The sun came out just as we were preparing to camp, and it looked as if
we should have clear weather the next day for Bartlett's meridian
observations at his "farthest north."

When our igloos were built, I told the two Eskimos, Keshungwah and
Karko, that they were to go back with the captain the next day; so they
could get their clothes as dry as possible, as they probably would not
have time to dry them on the forced march home. Bartlett was to retu