I followed the direction of his pointing finger. Sure enough, there was Wigmore, a tiny speck, running along the center span of the bridge. He was in full Alpine costume with rope, ax, pick and felt hat, and I saw to my amazement that he was going to board us. With the nimbleness of a chamois he scrambled over the railing, instantly beginning a spider-like descent of his rope which he had hooked above. Silhouetted against the sky I could see the curved feather in his cap, a minute question mark. The question in my mind was one of hair-raising anxiety. Would he make it, or not? Upon the answer seemed to depend the whole success or failure of our venture. His descent was timed to a nicety. Just as the Kawa plowed beneath him he gave a shake of his body, loosening the fastening, and dropped lightly to the deck amid our resounding cheers. Was it only in imagination that I saw the Goddess of Liberty wave her gigantic, torch-bearing arm, as if she too felt the thrill of a brave deed, nobly done? "Bravo, Wigmore," I cried. "But what detained you?" "My equipment, sir," he said, coming to attention. "They wouldn't let me into my apartment. The clerk thought I was a line-man for the Edison Company." We all laughed heartily at the incident and settled down to routine-life on ship-board. Our last farewell from the great port of the Metropolis was from the Detention Ward on Ellis Island. The Pesthouse band was out in full-force and blew germs into the air with much enthusiasm, but Triplett had laid a course to windward so that we felt no apprehension. It is perhaps not amiss at this point to say something regarding the highly important part played in our expedition by the Kawa herself. She may be said, I think, to be the star of a distinguished cast, or more accurately, that she divided stellar honors with me. For one of the conditions which was part of my bargain with good old Waxman and his associates was that I should actually take my ship to the Pole! The expression on the faces of the worthy committee of the E.U. when I accepted this astounding condition is something that I must leave to the reader's imagination. "Yes, gentlemen," I had said to them. "It can be done, and it will be done. Either I hitch the Kawa to the Pole or I never return!" My announcement was greeted with cheers. Immediately upon my return from Boston I closeted myself with Captain Triplett in the cozy nautical room of the Book-lovers Library and we jointly went over the layout of the Kawa from stem to stern. We were surrounded by files of drawings and a great mass of data upon naval architecture with special reference to Arctic conditions. From the outset I was imbued with a conviction that we should find nothing of real importance in what had been done before. A careful study of my predecessors convinced me that they had uniformly been on the wrong track. What they had tried to do was to fight the ice. What I proposed was to humor it.