_The choice of a route. Off at last. We take aboard a passenger. Seeds of discontent. Into the long twilight. Radio reversals. The ice at last. Trouble with our water-line. Its happy solution._ Chapter III Those of my readers who have not deserted during the cataloguing of our supplies may be interested in knowing something of our route. The lines of approach to the Pole are, of course, infinite in number. Let me illustrate this fact in a simple way. A direct projection of the northern hemisphere would resemble a pie with the Equator at its rim and the Pole at its center. Now imagine our pie cut into four quarters. We have, obviously, four ways to the Pole. But now suppose the arrival of unexpected company, four in number; a less generous distribution of our pie becomes necessary. The scientific housewife would at once solve the difficulty by cutting the pie on intervening lines. We now have eight pieces to our pie and, consequently, eight ways to our pole. If we have eight we may have sixteen, if sixteen, thirty-two, and so on, by subdivision, to infinity. Q.E.D.[5] THE BIG HUNTING As soon as the early August frosts warn the Eskimo huntsman that winter is nigh, he begins to think about his food-supply. In fact this is a thing he thinks about most of the time. Food is the paramount consideration in polar-regions. It is the standard of value, the source of warmth, the unit of measure it is everything. There are in reality but two seasons, Winter and Summer, in the regions immediately surrounding the Pole. Hunting is impossible in the one because of the intense cold. But between the two periods come a few days, a week at most, of intermediate temperature, too short to be called Spring or Autumn, but too valuable to be lost. It is during these short spells that the native must lay in his winter or summer supply of meat, skins, etc. Consequently he is always in a hurry. The photograph shows Makuik at his favorite sport of seal-slaughtering. Dr. Traprock tells us that owing to the amazing abundance of game in these remote regions it was possible for the mighty hunter to pursue his prey for four days without stopping for rest or food save for an occasional hunk of flesh or fat torn from one of his victims _en passant_.