On the eleventh of May the party encamped under the shadow of Cape Hawkes, on Grinnell Land, off the American coast. The distance from Cairn Point, in a straight line northwest, was eighty miles. They had been traveling thirty-one days, and made a twisting and clambering route of five hundred miles. The travel up the coast had the usual variety of dangers, hair-breadth escapes, and exhausting toil. A little flag-staff, planted by Dr. Hayes during the Kane expedition, was found bravely looking out upon the drear field it was set to designate, but the flag it bore had been blown away. Remains of Esquimo settlements long deserted were found. A raven croaked a welcome to the strangers, or it may be a warning, and followed them several days. On the fourth day up the coast Jensen, the hardiest of the vessel's company, utterly failed. He had strained his back as well as leg, and groaned with pain. What could be done? The party could not proceed with a sick man, nor would they for a moment think of leaving him alone. So the following course was adopted by the commander: M'Donald was left in the snow-hut with Jensen, with five days' food and five dogs, with orders to remain five days, and then, if Hayes and Knorr, who were to continue on, had not returned, to make his best way with Jensen back to the vessel. The journey of Dr. Hayes and Knorr was continued two full days. On the morning of the third day they had proceeded but a few miles when they came to a stand. They had on their left the abrupt, rocky, ice-covered cliffs of the shore; on their right were high ridges of ice, through which the waters of an open sea broke here and there into bays and inlets which washed the shore. Farther progress north by land or ice was impossible. They climbed a cliff which towered eight hundred feet above the sea, whose dark waters were lost in the distance toward the north-east. North, standing against the sky, was a noble headland, the most northern known land, and only about four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. The spot on which our explorers stood was about one degree farther north than that occupied by Morton, of Kane's Expedition, yet on the shore of the same open water. Now, if they only had the boat they were obliged to leave among the hummocks in Smith Sound, with the provisions and men they had _hoped_ to bring to this point, how soon would they solve the mystery locked up from the beginning, and in the keeping of his Frosty Majesty of the Pole itself! But, alas! there were neither boat nor provisions, and the movement of the treacherous floes warned the daring strangers that the bridge of ice over which they had come to this side might soon be torn away, and make a return impossible. They built a monument of stones, raised on it a flag of triumph, deposited beneath it a record of their visit placed in a bottle, and turned their faces homeward. CHAPTER XXXIII. LAST INCIDENTS OF THE EXPEDITION.