"Bergs to the right of them, bergs to the left of them, bergs on top of them," I heard somebody say, as we caught our breath at this miraculous escape.
The ship was now quite at the mercy of the drifting ice, and with the pressure from the outer pack the _Roosevelt_ again careened to starboard.

I knew that if she were driven any higher upon the shore, we should have to discharge a large part of the coal in order to lighten her sufficiently to get her off again.

So I decided to dynamite the ice.
I told Bartlett to get out his batteries and dynamite, and to smash the ice between the _Roosevelt_ and the heavy floes outside, making a soft cushion for the ship to rest on.

The batteries were brought up from the lazaret, one of the dynamite boxes lifted out with caution, and Bartlett and I looked for the best places in the ice for the charges.
Several sticks of dynamite were wrapped in pieces of old bagging and fastened on the end of long spruce poles, which we had brought along specially for this purpose.

A wire from the battery had, of course, been connected with one of the primers buried in the dynamite.