to minus 32 deg., a period of time which might have carried us beyond the 85th parallel but for those three days of wind at the start which had been the cause of this obstruction in our course.
During those five days I paced back and forth, deploring the luck which, when everything else was favorable--weather, ice, dogs, men, and equipment--should thus impede our way with open water.

Bartlett and I did not talk much to each other during those days.

It was a time when silence seemed more expressive than any words.

We looked at each other occasionally, and I could see from the tightening of Bartlett's jaw all that I needed to know of what was going on in his mind.
Each day the lead continued to widen before us, and each day we looked anxiously southward along the trail for Marvin and Borup to come up.

But they did not come.
Only one who had been in a similar position could understand the gnawing torment of those days of forced inaction, as I paced the floe in front of the igloos most of the time, climbing every little while to the top of the ice pinnacle back of the igloos to strain my eyes through the dim light to the south, sleeping through a few hours out of each twenty-four, with one ear open for the slightest noise, rising repeatedly to listen more intently for the eagerly desired sound of incoming dogs--all this punctuated, in spite of my utmost efforts at self-control, with memories of the effect of the delay at the "Big Lead" on my prospects in the previous expedition.