made their way back.

Using the boat hooks as vaulting poles, they leaped from one floe to
another, when the leads were not too wide. When the open water was
impassable in that way, they crossed it on small floating pieces of ice,
using their hooks to push and pull themselves along. First the doctor
slipped on the edge of a floe, and went into the icy water to the waist,
but he was quickly hauled up by Borup. Then Borup slipped and went in to
the waist, but he was out again as quickly.

Meanwhile the ice had separated about the _Roosevelt_, leaving a wide
lane of water between her and the men; but by running the ship against
one of the larger floes, we enabled them to clamber aboard. They lost no
time in exchanging their wet garments for dry ones, and in a few minutes
they were all laughing and recounting their exploits to an
interested--and possibly amused--group of listeners.

A man who could not laugh at a wetting or take as a matter of course a
dangerous passage over moving ice, would not be a man for a serious
arctic expedition. It was with a feeling of intense satisfaction that I
watched these three men, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell, my arctic
"tenderfeet," as I called them, proving the mettle of which they were
made.

I had selected these three men from among a host of applicants for
membership in the expedition, because of the special fitness of each
one. Dr. Goodsell was a solid, sturdy, self-made physician of
Pennsylvania stock. His specialism in microscopy I trusted might give
valuable results in a field not hitherto investigated in the North. He
was to make microscopic studies of the germ diseases of the Eskimos.

MacMillan, a trained athlete and physical instructor, I had known, and
known about, for years. I chose him because of his intense interest in
the work, his intense desire to be of the party, and his evident mental
and physical fitness for the rigorous demands of the Arctic.

Borup, the youngest member of the party, impressed me with his
enthusiasm and physical abilities. He had a record as a Yale runner, and
I took him on general principles, because I liked him, satisfied that he
was of the right stuff for arctic work. It was a fortunate selection, as
the photographs brought back by the expedition are due in a large
measure to his expert knowledge of film developing.

I have been asked how the members of my party amused themselves during
the long waits, when the ship was held up by the