intended from the
beginning that I should do, the thing which I believed could be done,
and that I could do, I have done. I have got the North Pole out of my
system after twenty-three years of effort, hard work, disappointments,
hardships, privations, more or less suffering, and some risks. I have
won the last great geographical prize, the North Pole, for the credit of
the United States. This work is the finish, the cap and climax of nearly
four hundred years of effort, loss of life, and expenditure of fortunes
by the civilized nations of the world, and it has been accomplished in a
way that is thoroughly American. I am content."

[Illustration: BACK ON THE "GLACIAL FRINGE"

(Land Ice of Grant Land Near Cape Columbia, April 23, 1909)]

Our return from the Pole was accomplished in sixteen marches, and the
entire journey from land to the Pole and back again occupied fifty-three
days, or forty-three marches. It had been, as a result of our experience
and perfected clothing and equipment, an amazingly comfortable return as
compared with previous ones, but a little difference in the weather
would have given us a different story to tell. There was no one in our
party who was not delighted to have passed the treacherous lead and
those wide expanses of young thin ice where a gale would have put an
open sea between us and the land and rendered our safe return hazardous,
to say the least.

In all probability no member of that little party will ever forget our
sleep at Cape Columbia. We slept gloriously for practically two days,
our brief waking intervals being occupied exclusively with eating and
with drying our clothes.

Then for the ship. Our dogs, like ourselves, had not been hungry when we
arrived, but simply lifeless with fatigue. They were different animals
now, and the better ones among them stepped out with tightly curled
tails and uplifted heads, their iron legs treading the snow with
piston-like regularity and their black muzzles every now and then
sniffing the welcome scent of the land.

[Illustration: EGINGWAH BEFORE STARTING ON THE SLEDGE TRIP]

[Illustration: EGINGWAH AFTER THE RETURN FROM THE TRIP]

[Illustration: OOTAH BEFORE STARTING ON THE SLEDGE TRIP]

[Illustration: OOTAH AFTER THE RETURN FROM THE SLEDGE TRIP]

(The Portraits at the Left Were Made by Flashlight on the _Roosevelt_
Before the Journey.
Those on the Right Were Taken Immediately After the Return)

We reached Cape Hecla in o