Each day the number of my dogs dwindled and sledges were broken up to cook those of the animals that we ate ourselves. But here let me say that personally I have no objection whatever to dog, if only there is enough of it. Serious Arctic work quickly brings a man to consider quantity only in connection with the food question. One day leads formed entirely around the ice on which we were, making it an island of two or three miles’ diameter. Later, two Eskimo scouts whom I had sent east to reconnoitre the lead came hurrying back breathless, with the report that a few miles from camp there was a film of young ice extending clear across the lead—now something over two miles wide—which they thought might support us on snowshoes. No time was lost in hurrying to the place when it was evident to us all that now was our chance or never, and I gave the word to put on snowshoes and make the attempt. I tied mine on more carefully than I had ever done before. I think every other man did the same, for we felt that a slip or stumble would be fatal. We had already tested the ice and knew it would not support us an instant without snowshoes. When we started it was with Panikpah, lightest of us all and most experienced, in the lead, the few remaining dogs attached to the long broad-runner sledge—the “Morris K. Jesup”—following him, and the rest of the party abreast in widely extended skirmish line, fifty to sixty feet between each two men, some distance behind the sledge. We crossed in silence, each man busy with his thoughts and intent upon his snowshoes. Frankly I do not care for more similar experiences. Once started, we could not stop, we could not lift our snowshoes. It was a matter of constantly and smoothly gliding one past the other with utmost care and evenness of pressure, and from every man as he slid a snowshoe forward, undulations went out in every direction through the thin film incrusting the black water, The sledge was preceded and followed by a broad swell. It was the first and only time in all my Arctic work that I felt doubtful as to the outcome, but when near the middle of the lead the toe of my rear kamik as I slid forward from it broke through twice in succession, I thought to myself “this is the finish,” and when a little later there was a cry from someone in the line, the words sprang from me of themselves: “God help him, which one is it?” but I dared not take my eyes from the steady, even gliding of my snowshoes, and the fascination of the glassy swell at the toes of them. When we stepped upon the firm ice on the southern side of the lead, the sighs of relief from the two men nearest me in the line on either side were distinctly audible. I was more than glad myself. The cry I had heard had been from one of my men whose toe, like mine, had broken through the ice.