BOBEBT E. PEABY 365 paced back and forth, deploring the luck which prevented their progress when everything else was favorable. The lead con- tinued to widen. The Eskimos began to get nervous. Two of the older men came to Peary and complained of being sick. But he knew it was only an excuse and told them to go back to land as quickly as possible. On the tenth day the young (freshly frozen) ice began to appear on the lead, and on the eleventh they got away again. Sometimes the movement of the tide caused the ice to ^'rafter." The grinding, groaning, and creaking, as the pieces of ice crunched together often kept up all night — not a soothing lullaby. Beyond the big lead one supporting party, under Dr. Good- sell, returned to land. They were accompanied by MacMillan who must turn back on account of a frosted heel. Late that same afternoon there were rumblings and loud reports among the floes. Soon an active lead cut the path of the explorers. They followed it until they came to a place where there were many pieces of floating ice some fifty or one hundred feet across. They got the dogs and sledges from one piece to another, using the ice much as a pontoon bridge. As Borup was getting his team across, the dogs slipped and went into the water. Leaping forward, this young athlete stopped the sledge from following the dogs, and catching hold of the traces that fastened them to the sledge, he pulled them bodily out of the water. A man less quick and less muscular than Borup might have lost the whole team as well as the sledge laden with five hundred pounds of supplies, which, far out in that icy wilderness, were worth more than their weight in diamonds. Five marches farther on, the second supporting party re- turned, under the leadership of Borup who had also frosted a heel. Captain Bartlett went to the front again with Henson's division. While the pioneer party marched, the main party slept, and vice versa. After three more marches, Marvin, with the third support- ing party, turned back, March twenty-sixth. After bidding
