en--and two hundred and forty-six dogs. The _Roosevelt_, as
usual, was loaded almost to the water's edge with the coal that had been
crowded into her, the seventy tons of whale meat which we had bought in
Labrador, and the meat and blubber of nearly fifty walruses.

We parted company from the _Erik_ and steamed north on the 18th of
August, an intensely disagreeable day, with driving snow and rain, and a
cutting wind from the southeast which made the sea very rough. As the
two ships separated, they signaled "good-by and good luck" with the
whistles, and our last link with civilization was broken.

Since my return I have been asked if I did not feel deep emotion on
parting with my companions on the _Erik_, and I have truthfully replied
that I did not. The reader must remember that this was my eighth
expedition into the Arctic, and that I had parted from a supply ship
many times before. Constant repetition will take the edge from the most
dramatic experience. As we steamed north from the harbor of Etah, my
thoughts were on the condition of the ice in Robeson Channel; and the
ice in Robeson Channel is more dramatic than any parting--save from
one's nearest and dearest, and I had left mine three thousand miles
below at Sydney. We had some three hundred and fifty miles of almost
solid ice to negotiate before we could reach our hoped-for winter
quarters at Cape Sheridan. I knew that beyond Smith Sound we might have
to make our slow way rod by rod, and sometimes literally inch by inch,
butting and ramming and dodging the mountainous ice; that, if the
_Roosevelt_ survived, I should probably not have my clothes off, or be
able to snatch more than an hour or two of sleep at a time, for two or
three weeks. Should we lose our ship and have to make our way over the
ice southward from anywhere below Lady Franklin Bay, or possibly beyond
there--it was good-by to my life's dream and probably to some of my
companions.

CHAPTER IX

A WALRUS HUNT

The walrus are among the most picturesque and powerful fauna of the far
North. More than that, their pursuit and capture, a process by no means
devoid of peril, is an important part of every serious arctic
expedition, for on every expedition of mine these huge creatures,
weighing as they do all the way from 1,200 to 3,000 pounds, are hunted
for the purpose of obtaining the maximum of meat for dog food in a
minimum of time.

Wolstenholm and Whale Sounds, which are passed before reac