e reached the fifth outward camp.

So far we had seemed to bear a charm which protected us from all
difficulties and dangers. While Bartlett and Marvin and, as I found out
later, Borup had been delayed by open leads, at no single lead had we
been delayed more than a couple of hours. Sometimes the ice had been
firm enough to carry us across; sometimes we had made a short detour;
sometimes we halted for the lead to close; sometimes we used an ice-cake
as an improvised ferry: but whatever the mode of our crossing, we had
crossed without serious difficulty.

[Illustration: LAST CAMP ON THE ICE ON THE RETURN]

It had seemed as if the guardian genius of the polar waste, having at
last been vanquished by man, had accepted defeat and withdrawn from the
contest.

Now, however, we were getting within the baleful sphere of influence of
the "Big Lead," and in the fifth igloos from Columbia (the first ones
north of the lead) I passed an intensely uncomfortable night, suffering
from a variety of disagreeable symptoms which I diagnosed as those of
quinsy. On this march we had brought the land up very rapidly so that I
had some consolation for my discomfort. In three or four days at the
most, barring accident, our feet would again press land. Despite my
aching throat and no sleep, I took much comfort from this welcome
thought.

[Illustration: SOUNDING]

CHAPTER XXXIV

BACK TO LAND AGAIN

We had now reached the neighborhood of the "Big Lead" which had held us
in check so many days on the upward journey and which had nearly cost
the lives of my entire party in 1906. I anticipated trouble, therefore,
in the march of April 20-21, and I was not disappointed. Although the
"Big Lead" was frozen over we found that Bartlett on his return had lost
the main trail here and did not find it again. For the rest of the ice
journey, therefore, we were compelled to follow the single trail made by
Bartlett instead of our well beaten outward trail. I could not complain.
We had kept the beaten road back to within some fifty miles of the land.

For me this was the most uncomfortable march of the entire trip. It was
made following a sleepless night in a cold igloo. For all that my
clothes were wet with perspiration, my jaw and head throbbed and burned
incessantly, though toward the end of the march I began to feel the
effects of the quinine I had taken, and not long after we reached the
captain's igloo the worst of the symptoms had departe