rn work, seven members of the expedition, nineteen Eskimos, one
hundred and forty dogs, and twenty-eight sledges. As already stated, the
six advance divisions were to meet me at Cape Columbia on the last day
of February. These parties, as well as my own, had all followed the
regular trail to Cape Columbia, which had been kept open during the fall
and winter by the hunting parties and supply-trains. This trail followed
the ice-foot along the coast the greater part of the way, only taking to
the land occasionally to cut across a peninsula and thus shorten the
road.

On the last day of February Bartlett and Borup got away to the North
with their divisions, as soon as it was light enough to travel. The
weather still remained clear, calm, and cold. After the pioneer division
had started north, all the remaining sledges were lined up, and I
examined them to see that each had the standard load and full equipment.
On leaving the _Roosevelt_ I had in the field exactly enough dogs to put
twenty teams of seven dogs each on the ice, and had counted on doing
this; but while we were at Cape Columbia the throat distemper broke out
in one team, and six dogs died. This left me only enough for nineteen
teams.

My plans were further disarranged by the disabling of two Eskimos. I had
counted on having a pickax brigade, composed of Marvin, MacMillan, and
Dr. Goodsell, ahead of the main party, improving the road, but found
that two Eskimos would be unfit to go on the ice--one having a frosted
heel, and the other a swollen knee. This depletion in the ranks of
sledge drivers meant that Marvin and MacMillan would each have to drive
a dog team, and that the pickax squad would be reduced to one man--Dr.
Goodsell. As it turned out, this did not make much difference. The going
was not so rough in the beginning as I had anticipated, and most of the
pickax work that was required could be done by the drivers of the
sledges as they reached the difficult places.

When I awoke before light on the morning of March 1st, the wind was
whistling about the igloo. This phenomenon, appearing on the very day of
our start, after so many days of calm, seemed the perversity of hard
luck. I looked through the peep-hole of the igloo and saw that the
weather was still clear, and that the stars were scintillating like
diamonds. The wind was from the east--a direction from which I had never
known it to blow in all my years of experience in that region. This
unusual ci