On the 14th our course was finished. Then Riiser-Larsen paced it again and was surprised to find that instead of four hundred meters it was five hundred. When he informed Amundsen of this fact, the Captain was quick to remark that one million dollars couldn’t buy that extra hundred meters from him, and we all agreed that it was priceless. And so it proved to be. [Illustration: ELLSWORTH, AMUNDSEN, LARSEN AND FEUCHT WITH THE IMPLEMENTS WITH WHICH THEY MOVED 300 TONS OF ICE] On the evening of the 14th, after our chocolate, and with a southerly wind still blowing--this was a tail-wind on this course and of no help to us--we decided to make a try. But we only bumped along and the plane made no effort to rise. What we needed to get off with was a speed of 100 kilometers per hour. During all our previous attempts to take off, forty kilometers had been the best we could do. On this trial we got up to sixty, and Riiser-Larsen was hopeful. It was characteristic of the man to turn in his seat as we jumped out and remark to me: “I hope you are not disappointed, Ellsworth. We’ll do better next time.” That calm, dispassionate man was ever the embodiment of hope. [Illustration: LINCOLN ELLSWORTH AFTER THE TRIP] That night it was my watch all night. Around and around the ice-cake I shuffled, with my feet thrust loosely into the ski straps and a rifle slung over my shoulder, on the alert for open water. Then, too, we were always afraid that the ice-cake might break beneath us. It was badly crevassed in places. Many times during that night, on my patrol, I watched Riiser-Larsen draw himself up out of the manhole in the top of the plane to see how the wind was blowing. During the night the wind had shifted from the south and in the morning a light breeze was blowing from the north. This was the second time during our twenty-five days in the ice that the wind had blown from the north. We had landed with a north wind--but were we to get away with a north wind? That was the question. The temperature during the night was -1.5° c. and the snow surface was crisp and hard in the morning. We now were forced to dump everything that we could spare. We left one of our canvas canoes, rifles, cameras, field-glasses; we even discarded sealskin parkas and heavy ski-boots, replacing them with moccasins. All we dare retain was half of our provisions, one canvas canoe, a shotgun and one hundred rounds of ammunition. Then we all climbed into the plane and Riiser-Larsen started up. Dietrichson was to navigate. The plane began to move! After bumping for four hundred meters the plane actually lifted in the last hundred meters. When I could feel the plane lifting beneath me I was happy, but we had had so many cruel disappointments during the past twenty-five days that our minds were in a state where we could feel neither great elation nor great suffering. Captain Amundsen had taken his seat beside Riiser-Larsen, and I got into the tail.