d. But it was hard
drilling that day, and our troubles were in no way lessened by the fact
that the dogs seemed utterly without energy or spirit.

The beautiful weather which had accompanied us for several days still
continued on the next day. It was really a surprising stretch of
splendid weather. We marched six hours, then stopped for luncheon, and
then drilled along for six hours more. Repeatedly we passed fresh tracks
of bear and hare, together with numerous fox tracks. Save for these, the
march was uneventful, with the exception of two narrow leads which we
crossed over thin young ice. All that day the sun was hot and blinding
to an almost intolerable degree. It would have been practically
impossible to travel with the sun in our faces, so fierce were its rays.
Yet all this day the temperature ranged between 18 deg. and 30 deg. below zero.

The last day's journey before we reached shore began at 5 P.M. in that
same brilliant, clear, calm weather. A short distance from camp we
encountered an impracticable lead which the captain's trail crossed. In
one fruitless attempt to pass it we got one of our teams in the water.
Ultimately the lead swung to the east, and we found the captain's trail,
took it up, and worked around the end of the lead.

[Illustration: APPROACHING THE PEAKS OF CAPE COLUMBIA OVER THE SURFACE
OF THE "GLACIAL FRINGE"]

Only a short distance further on we got our first glimpse of the edge of
the glacial fringe ahead of us and stopped our march long enough to take
some photographs. Before midnight that night the whole party had reached
the glacial fringe of Grant Land. We had now left the ice of the polar
sea and were practically on _terra firma_. When the last sledge came to
the almost vertical edge of the glacier's fringe I thought my Eskimos
had gone crazy. They yelled and called and danced until they fell from
utter exhaustion. As Ootah sank down on his sledge he remarked in
Eskimo: "The devil is asleep or having trouble with his wife or we
should never have come back so easily." We stopped long enough for a
leisurely luncheon with tea _ad libitum_ and then pressed on until Cape
Columbia was reached.

[Illustration: CRANE CITY AT CAPE COLUMBIA, ON THE RETURN]

It was almost exactly six o'clock on the morning of April 23 when we
reached the igloo of "Crane City" at Cape Columbia and the work was
done. Here I wrote these words in my diary:

"My life work is accomplished. The thing which it was