An occasional walk on land was a relief from the stench and disorder of the ship, for the dogs kept the _Roosevelt_ in a very unclean condition.

Many persons have asked how we could endure the presence of nearly two hundred and fifty dogs on the deck of a small ship; but every achievement has its drawbacks, and it must not be forgotten that without the dogs we could not have reached the Pole.
At this point we landed another cache, similar to the one at Lincoln Bay, to be ready for anything that might happen.
On the 4th, the wind came strong from the south, and as there seemed to be a little open water ahead, at eight in the morning we started to get out of our berth.

It took an hour to break up the "slob" ice which had cemented about the ship.

We were happy to be under way again; but at the delta just ahead of us the ice refused to open, the drift ice from the south was coming up rapidly before the wind, and we were compelled to hurry back to our former berth below Black Cape.

We did not get in again without some trouble as the strong wind made the _Roosevelt_ hard to manage.