OFF ACROSS THE FROZEN SEA AT LAST The work of the expedition, to which all the former months of detail were merely preliminary, began with Bartlett's departure from the _Roosevelt_ on the 15th of February for the final sledge journey toward the Pole.

The preceding summer we had driven the ship through the almost solid ice of the channels lying between Etah and Cape Sheridan; we had hunted through the long twilight of the autumn to supply ourselves with meat; we had lived through the black and melancholy months-long arctic night, sustaining our spirits with the hope of final success when the returning light should enable us to attack the problem of our passage across the ice of the polar sea.

Now these things were all behind us, and the final work was to begin.
It was ten o'clock on the morning of February 22d--Washington's Birthday--when I finally got away from the ship and started on the journey toward the Pole.

This was one day earlier than I had left the ship three years before on the same errand.

I had with me two of the younger Eskimos, Arco and Kudlooktoo, two sledges and sixteen dogs.