n, for it was due to him that those who followed were
able to keep the trail and reach the land again. The foolish boys, in
accordance with Esquimo tradition, had unloaded all of Prof. Marvin's
personal effects on the ice, so that his spirit should not follow them,
and they hurried on back to land and to the ship, where they told their
sad story.

CHAPTER XVIII

AFTER MUSK-OXEN--THE DOCTOR'S SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION

From the time of my arrival at the _Roosevelt_, for nearly three weeks,
my days were spent in complete idleness. I would catch a fleeting
glimpse of Commander Peary, but not once in all of that time did he
speak a word to me. Then he spoke to me in the most ordinary
matter-of-fact way, and ordered me to get to work. Not a word about the
North Pole or anything connected with it; simply, "There is enough wood
left, and I would like to have you make a couple of sledges and mend the
broken ones. I hope you are feeling all right." There was enough wood
left and I made three sledges, as well as repaired those that were
broken.

The Commander was still running things and he remained the commander to
the last minute; nothing escaped him, and when the time came to
slow-down on provisions, he gave the orders, and we had but two spare
meals a day to sustain us. The whole expedition lived on travel rations
from before the time we left Cape Sheridan until we had reached Sidney,
N. S., and like the keen-fanged hounds, we were always ready and fit.

It was late in May when Prof. MacMillan and Mr. Borup, with their
Esquimo companions returned from Cape Jesup, where they had been doing
highly important scientific work, taking soundings out on the sea-ice
north of the cape as high as 84 deg. 15' north, and also at the cape. They
had made a trip that was record-breaking; they had visited the different
cairns made by Lockwood and Brainard and by Commander Peary, and they
had also captured and brought into the ship a musk-ox calf; and they had
most satisfactorily demonstrated their fitness as Arctic explorers,
having followed the Commander's orders implicitly and secured more than
the required number of tidal-readings and soundings.

Prof. MacMillan, with Jack Barnes, a sailor, and Kudlooktoo, left for
Fort Conger early in June, and continued the work of tidal-observations.
They rejoined the _Roosevelt_ just before she left Cape Sheridan. A
little later in the month, Borup went to Clements Markham Inlet to hunt
musk