ould elect. For he was always
thinking of the great treasures which I had promised each of the men who
should go to the farthest point with me--whale-boat, rifle, shotgun,
ammunition, knives, et cetera--wealth beyond the wildest dreams of
Eskimos, which should win for him the daughter of old Ikwah of Cape
York, on whom he had set his heart.

All these men had a blind confidence that I would somehow get them back
to land. But I recognized fully that all the impetus of the party
centered in me. Whatever pace I set, the others would make good; but if
I played out, they would stop like a car with a punctured tire. I had no
fault to find with the conditions, and I faced them with confidence.

CHAPTER XXX

THE FINAL SPURT BEGUN

At this time it may be appropriate to say a word regarding my reasons
for selecting Henson as my fellow traveler to the Pole itself. In this
selection I acted exactly as I have done on all my expeditions for the
last fifteen years. He has in those years always been with me at my
point farthest north. Moreover, Henson was the best man I had with me
for this kind of work, with the exception of the Eskimos, who, with
their racial inheritance of ice technic and their ability to handle
sledges and dogs, were more necessary to me, as members of my own
individual party, than any white man could have been. Of course they
could not lead, but they could follow and drive dogs better than any
white man.

Henson, with his years of arctic experience, was almost as skilful at
this work as an Eskimo. He could handle dogs and sledges. He was a part
of the traveling machine. Had I taken another member of the expedition
also, he would have been a passenger, necessitating the carrying of
extra rations and other impedimenta. It would have amounted to an
additional load on the sledges, while the taking of Henson was in the
interest of economy of weight.

The second reason was that while Henson was more useful to me than any
other member of my expedition when it came to traveling with my last
party over the polar ice, he would not have been so competent as the
white members of the expedition in getting himself and his party back to
the land. If Henson had been sent back with one of the supporting
parties from a distance far out on the ice, and if he had encountered
conditions similar to those which we had to face on the return journey
in 1906, he and his party would never have reached the land. While
faithfu