In the evening of the 8th, the ice slackened to the southeast, I abandoned the idea of picking up my Victoria Head Depot, and the _Roosevelt_ was headed for Cairn Point on the Greenland coast. From the evening of September 5th until midnight of September 7th, we were able to make intermittent runs of a few hours duration, the sum total of which placed us somewhat more than half across Kane Basin. During the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th we lay imprisoned among very heavy old floes close to a group of four icebergs, a position which caused me considerable uneasiness, particularly as a strong southerly gale was blowing during two days of the time. At 7 P. M. of the 11th we made another short run and during the five following days we worked southeastward at every opportunity, gaining a mile or two at almost every tide, then being nipped and crowded (wedged is the better word, perhaps) southwestward toward Sabine, by some huge field of ice forging down along the Greenland coast. The weather was getting very sharp now, the young ice formed and became extremely tough with great rapidity, and while this time I had at heart no doubt of our eventual escape unless some unforeseen event occurred, still the lateness of the season and our surroundings were such as to make a repetition of the _Polaris’s_ experience, and a winter’s drift in the pack by no means impossible. The unforeseen contingency seemed to have arrived when it was reported on the 14th that the propeller was loose, and if we did any backing we would lose it. Such a loss would of course mean a certainty of wintering in the pack. Much to my relief an examination of the propeller showed that only the nuts holding the blades in place were loose, and these after nearly two days of effort were with much difficulty tightened up, and this danger, for a time at least, averted. During the night of the 14th a floe not less than eight or ten miles in diameter, crowding south on the ebb-tide, wedged us and the ice about us over to within ten miles of Cape Sabine. In return, however, for this apparent injury it gave us a bear, the first seen by the Expedition, and left along its northern edge a line of cleavage through which we were able to butt and squeeze a passage eastward once more, and reach a series of areas of young ice from three to five inches in thickness. To many a ship this ice would have been as impracticable as the heavy floes through which we had been working; but to the fine bow of the _Roosevelt_, which Captain Dix had so carefully moulded, it proved no obstacle, and she walked steadily through it in spite of her crippled propeller and reduced boiler power.