But this hopeless state of mind did not last long. Peary spent six more years in preparing for one last desperate attempt. On the sixth of July, 1908, he left New York City for his eighth voyage to the Arctic, on his latest ship, the _Roosevelt_--determined to reach the Pole or die in the attempt. This time, when he came within a few degrees of his goal, he decided to leave all behind but the faithful Matthew and one Eskimo, while he made the last dash. When he came within a few miles of the spot he had sought for nearly twenty years, he was prostrated by overwork and excitement. After a short rest he went on and stood, on the sixth of April, 1909, in the place called the North Pole. There was nothing to see--not a living thing but themselves and their dogs. But he was now on the top of the world. There was no North, no East, no West--only South. The only North he could see was up in the cold, gray sky. Directly overhead was the North Star, toward which the Pole points. Peary stayed in that desolate neighborhood thirty hours, taking observations and “planting” five United States flags to show to future comers that America had been first to discover and take possession of the North Pole. One flag he mounted on a pole which he set in the top of a hummock of ice, as if the North Pole were a flag pole standing up out of the surface of the earth. This was called “nailing the American flag to the North Pole.” Then he wrote this postal card to mail to his wife: “90 NORTH LATITUDE, April 7th, 1909. “MY DEAR JO:--I have won out at last. Have been here a day. I start for home and you in an hour. Love to the kidsies. “BERT.” COLONISTS AND PIONEERS JOHN SMITH, THE CAPTAIN OF MANY ADVENTURES Stories of the strange adventures of Columbus, John Cabot, and other explorers made a restless lad of little motherless John Smith, of Willoughby, England. When he was fourteen he had made ready to run away from home; but then his father died and left him the owner of an estate, in the charge of guardians. Those mean men cared more for the property than for the boy who was to have it when he was old enough. So they gave him only a little pocket-money and hired him out by law as apprentice to a tradesman, who treated the well-to-do lad as if he were a slave. [Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH] In less than a year young John Smith ran away in good earnest, leaving master, guardians, and property behind. He had attended two free schools and had gained what would be equal to a common-school education in these days. He went right to Paris, because France and Spain were at war just then; but peace was declared almost as soon as he was able to enlist.