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Page 4
"Oh, this will never do," muttered Ferriss, disheartened.
"Come on, men!" exclaimed Bennett. "Mr. Ferriss, go forward, and choose
a road for us."
The labour of the morning was recommenced. With infinite patience,
infinite hardship, the sledges one by one were advanced. So heavy were
the three larger McClintocks that only one could be handled at a time,
and that one taxed the combined efforts of men and dogs to the
uttermost. The same ground had to be covered seven times. For every yard
gained seven had to be travelled. It was not a march, it was a battle; a
battle without rest and without end and without mercy; a battle with an
Enemy whose power was beyond all estimate and whose movements were not
reducible to any known law. A certain course would be mapped, certain
plans formed, a certain objective determined, and before the course
could be finished, the plans executed, or the objective point attained
the perverse, inexplicable movement of the ice baffled their
determination and set at naught their best ingenuity.
At four o'clock it began to snow. Since the middle of the forenoon the
horizon had been obscured by clouds and mist so that no observation for
position could be taken. Steadily the clouds had advanced, and by four
o'clock the expedition found itself enveloped by wind and driving snow.
The flags could no longer be distinguished; thin and treacherous ice was
concealed under drifts; the dogs floundered helplessly; the men could
scarcely open their eyes against the wind and fine, powder-like snow,
and at times when they came to drag forward the last sledge they found
it so nearly buried in the snow that it must be dug out before it could
be moved.
Toward half past five the odometer on one of the dog-sleds registered a
distance of three-quarters of a mile made since morning. Bennett called
a halt, and camp was pitched in the lee of one of the larger hummocks.
The alcohol cooker was set going, and supper was had under the tent, the
men eating as they lay in their sleeping-bags. But even while eating
they fell asleep, drooping lower and lower, finally collapsing upon the
canvas floor of the tent, the food still in their mouths.
Yet, for all that, the night was miserable. Even after that day of
superhuman struggle they were not to be allowed a few hours of unbroken
rest. By midnight the wind had veered to the east and was blowing a
gale. An hour later the tent came down. Exhausted as they were, they
must turn out and wrestle with that slatting, ice-sheathed canvas, and
it was not until half an hour later that everything was fast again.
Once more they crawled into the sleeping-bags, but soon the heat from
their bodies melted the ice upon their clothes, and pools of water
formed under each man, wetting him to the skin. Sleep was impossible. It
grew colder and colder as the night advanced, and the gale increased. At
three o'clock in the morning the centigrade thermometer was at eighteen
degrees below. The cooker was lighted again, and until six o'clock the
party huddled wretchedly about it, dozing and waking, shivering
continually.
Breakfast at half past six o'clock; under way again an hour later. There
was no change in the nature of the ice. Ridge succeeded ridge, hummock
followed upon hummock. The wind was going down, but the snow still fell
as fine and bewildering as ever. The cold was intense. Dennison, the
doctor and naturalist of the expedition, having slipped his mitten, had
his hand frostbitten before he could recover it. Two of the dogs, Big
Joe and Stryelka, were noticeably giving out.
But Bennett, his huge jaws clenched, his small, distorted eyes twinkling
viciously through the apertures of the wind-mask, his harsh, black
eyebrows lowering under the narrow, contracted forehead, drove the
expedition to its work relentlessly. Not Muck Tu, the dog-master, had
his Ostiaks more completely under his control than he his men. He
himself did the work of three. On that vast frame of bone and muscle,
fatigue seemed to leave no trace. Upon that inexorable bestial
determination difficulties beyond belief left no mark. Not one of the
twelve men under his command fighting the stubborn ice with tooth and
nail who was not galvanised with his tremendous energy. It was as though
a spur was in their flanks, a lash upon their backs. Their minds, their
wills, their efforts, their physical strength to the last ounce and
pennyweight belonged indissolubly to him. For the time being they were
his slaves, his serfs, his beasts of burden, his draught animals, no
better than the dogs straining in the traces beside them. Forward they
must and would go until they dropped in the harness or he gave the word
to pause.
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