r we were now in the
period of perpetual sunlight--we again turned into the igloos which had
been hurriedly built after our exciting experience the night before. A
low murmur as of distant surf was issuing from the blackness ahead of
us, and steadily growing in volume. To the inexperienced it might have
seemed an ominous sound, but to us it was a cheering thing because we
knew it meant the narrowing, and perhaps the closing, of the stretch of
open water that barred our way. So we slept happily in our frosty huts
that "night."

CHAPTER XXIX

BARTLETT REACHES 87 deg. 47'

Our hopes were soon realized, for at one o'clock in the morning, March
30, when I awoke and looked at my watch, the murmur from the closing
lead had increased to a hoarse roar, punctuated with groans and with
reports like those of rifles, dying away to the east and west like the
sounds from a mighty firing line. Looking through the peep-hole, I saw
that the black curtain had thinned so that I could see through it to
another similar, though blacker, curtain behind, indicating still
another lead further on.

[Illustration: CROSSING A LARGE LAKE OF YOUNG ICE, NORTH OF 87 deg.

("As Level as a Floor" for Six or Seven Miles. In Places This Ice Was so
Thin That It Buckled Under the Sledges and Drivers)]

At eight o'clock in the morning the temperature was down to minus 30 deg.,
with a bitter northwest breeze. The grinding and groaning of the ice had
ceased, and the smoke and haze had disappeared, as is usual when a lead
closes up or freezes over. We rushed across before the ice should open
again. All this day we traveled together, Bartlett's division, Henson's,
and mine, constantly crossing narrow lanes of young ice, which had only
recently been open water. During this march we had to cross a lake of
young ice some six or seven miles across--so thin that the ice buckled
under us as we rushed on at full speed for the other side. We did our
best to make up for the previous day's delay, and when we finally camped
on a heavy old floe we had made a good twenty miles.

The entire region through which we had come during the last four marches
was full of unpleasant possibilities for the future. Only too well we
knew that violent winds for even a few hours would set the ice all
abroad in every direction. Crossing such a zone on a journey north, is
only half the problem, for there is always the return to be figured on.
Though the motto of the Arctic must