osing of the leads.

Bartlett took the observations here, as had Marvin five camps back
partly to save my eyes and partly to have independent observations by
different members of the expedition. When the calculations were
completed, two copies were made, one for Bartlett and one for me, and he
got ready to start south on the back trail in command of my fourth
supporting party, with his two Eskimos, one sledge, and eighteen dogs.

I felt a keen regret as I saw the captain's broad shoulders grow smaller
in the distance and finally disappear behind the ice hummocks of the
white and glittering expanse toward the south. But it was no time for
reverie, and I turned abruptly away and gave my attention to the work
which was before me. I had no anxiety about Bartlett. I knew that I
should see him again at the ship. My work was still ahead, not in the
rear. Bartlett had been invaluable to me, and circumstances had thrust
upon him the brunt of the pioneering instead of its being divided among
several, as I had originally planned.

Though he was naturally disappointed at not having reached the 88th
parallel, he had every reason to be proud, not only of his work in
general, but that he had surpassed the Italian record by a degree and a
quarter. I had given him the post of honor in command of my last
supporting party for three reasons: first, because of his magnificent
handling of the _Roosevelt_; second, because he had cheerfully and
gladly stood between me and every possible minor annoyance from the
start of the expedition to that day; third, because it seemed to me
right that, in view of the noble work of Great Britain in arctic
exploration, a British subject should, next to an American, be able to
say that he had stood nearest the North Pole.

With the departure of Bartlett, the main party now consisted of my own
division and Henson's. My men were Egingwah and Seegloo; Henson's men
were Ootah and Ooqueah. We had five sledges and forty dogs, the pick of
one hundred and forty with which we had left the ship. With these we
were ready now for the final lap of the journey.

We were now one hundred and thirty-three nautical miles from the Pole.
Pacing back and forth in the lee of the pressure ridge near which our
igloos were built, I made out my program. Every nerve must be strained
to make five marches of at least twenty-five miles each, crowding these
marches in such a way as to bring us to the end of the fifth march by
noon, to