corded that the
men became melancholy, sleepless, and irritable because of the long
Arctic night, temper was still in so good a state that an honor system
within the camp meted out extra duty to any man using an oath.

The comradely feeling remained alive within the party throughout the
first winter, though morale had its first blow when Greeley issued an
unwise order forbidding enlisted men to go more than 500 yards from
the base without permission. The strain was beginning to tell, but
there was no fatal rift in the working harmony of the group while
supply and hope remained reasonably full.

But June of the second year came and passed, and no relief ship
arrived. In August, Greeley decided on a retreat, intending to fall
back on bases which were supposed to hold food stores. Thereafter
disaster was piled upon disaster, most of it having to do with the
lack of food, and the varying animal and spiritual reactions of men to
a situation of utmost desperation. When the Greeley Expedition was at
last rescued at Cape Sabine on June 22, 1884, by the third
expedition--the _Revenue Cutter Bear_ and the _Thetis_ under Commander
Winfield S. Schley, USN--only seven men remained alive. Even in these,
the spark of life was so feeble that their tent was down over them and
they had resigned themselves to death. Two died soon after the rescue,
leaving five. Most of the other 20 had perished of slow starvation,
but not all. Some had been shot. Others had met death with utmost
bravery trying to save their failing comrades.

All that happened to Greeley's party during the months of its terrible
ordeal is known because of a diary which records the main things--the
fight of discipline against the primal instincts in men, the reversion
of the so-called civilized man to his real type when he knows that
death is at his elbow, the strength of unity which comes of
comradeship, and also the weakness in some individuals which makes it
impossible for them to measure up to honor's requirements.

Men are of all kinds. Some remain base, though given every opportunity
to develop compassion. Others who may appear plodding and dull, and
have been denied opportunity, still have in them an immortal spark of
love for humanity which gives them an unbreakable bond with their
fellows in the hours of crisis.

What the case history of the Greeley Expedition proves is that _in the
determining number of men, the potential is sound_. Given a wise,
understand