he grim
guardians of earth's remotest spot will accept no man as guest until he
has been tried and tested by the severest ordeal.

[Illustration: MEMBERS OF THE PARTY CHEERING THE STARS AND STRIPES AT
THE POLE, APRIL 7, 1909

From Left to Right; Ooqueah, Ootah, Henson, Egingwah and Seegloo]

Perhaps it ought not to have been so, but when I knew for a certainty
that we had reached the goal, there was not a thing in the world I
wanted but sleep. But after I had a few hours of it, there succeeded a
condition of mental exaltation which made further rest impossible. For
more than a score of years that point on the earth's surface had been
the object of my every effort. To its attainment my whole being,
physical, mental, and moral, had been dedicated. Many times my own life
and the lives of those with me had been risked. My own material and
forces and those of my friends had been devoted to this object. This
journey was my eighth into the arctic wilderness. In that wilderness I
had spent nearly twelve years out of the twenty-three between my
thirtieth and my fifty-third year, and the intervening time spent in
civilized communities during that period had been mainly occupied with
preparations for returning to the wilderness. The determination to reach
the Pole had become so much a part of my being that, strange as it may
seem, I long ago ceased to think of myself save as an instrument for the
attainment of that end. To the layman this may seem strange, but an
inventor can understand it, or an artist, or anyone who has devoted
himself for years upon years to the service of an idea.

[Illustration: EGINGWAH SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR LAND]

[Illustration: PEARY SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR LAND]

From Top of Pressure Ridge Back of Igloos at Camp Jesup

But though my mind was busy at intervals during those thirty hours spent
at the Pole with the exhilarating thought that my dream had come
true, there was one recollection of other times that, now and then,
intruded itself with startling distinctness. It was the recollection of
a day three years before, April 21, 1906, when after making a fight with
ice, open water, and storms, the expedition which I commanded had been
forced to turn back from 87 deg. 6' north latitude because our supply of
food would carry us no further. And the contrast between the terrible
depression of that day and the exaltation of the present moment was not
the least pleasant feature of our brief