ed stoically to consider
as a part of the day's work, in order to win our goal.

One of the first things done after reaching the ship and bringing our
sleep up to date was to reward the Eskimos who had served us so
faithfully. They were all fitted out with rifles, shotguns, cartridges,
shells, reloading tools, hatchets, knives, and so on, and they behaved
like so many children who had just received a boundless supply of toys.
Among the things I have given them at various times, none are more
important than the telescopes, which enable them to distinguish game in
the distance. The four who stood with me at the Pole were to receive
whale-boats, tents, and other treasures when I dropped them at their
home settlements along the Greenland coast on the southward journey of
the _Roosevelt_.

CHAPTER XXXV

LAST DAYS AT CAPE SHERIDAN

It is not long now to the end of the story. On returning to the
_Roosevelt_ I learned that MacMillan and the doctor had reached the ship
March 21, Borup on April 11, the Eskimo survivors of Marvin's party
April 17, and Bartlett on April 24. MacMillan and Borup had started for
the Greenland coast, before my return, to deposit caches for me, in the
event that I should be obliged by the drifting of the ice to come back
that way, as in 1906. (Borup, on his return to the land, had deposited a
cache for me at Cape Fanshawe Martin, on the Grant Land coast, some
eighty miles west from Cape Columbia, thus providing for a drift in
either direction.)

[Illustration: PERMANENT MONUMENT ERECTED AT CAPE COLUMBIA TO MARK POINT
OF DEPARTURE AND RETURN OF NORTH POLE SLEDGE PARTY]

Borup also, with the aid of the Eskimos, built at Cape Columbia a
permanent monument, consisting of a pile of stones formed round the base
of a guidepost made of sledge planks, with four arms pointing true
north, south, east, and west--the whole supported and guyed by numerous
strands of heavy sounding wire. On each arm is a copper plate, with an
inscription punched in it. On the eastern arm is, "Cape Morris K. Jesup,
May 16, 1900, 275 miles;" on the southern arm is, "Cape Columbia, June
6, 1906;" on the western arm is, "Cape Thomas H. Hubbard, July 1, 1906,
225 miles;" on the northern arm, "North Pole, April 6, 1909, 413
miles." Below these arms, in a frame covered with glass to protect it
from the weather, is a record containing the following:

PEARY ARCTIC CLUB NORTH POLE EXPEDITION, 1908

_S. S. R