Soon after he reached us a movement of the shores of the lead to the west crushed up the narrow ribbon of unsafe young ice over which he had passed, and we were able to hurry across with sledges and push west for the trail, which was about a mile and a half distant.
When we reached the trail we saw, by the tracks of men and dogs pointing south, that Borup had already passed that way on his return to Columbia, in accordance with my program.

He had probably crossed the lead and was now scouting for our trail somewhere on the southerly side.
As soon as Marvin, who was following me, came up, I had Kyutah throw off his sledge load, and sent Marvin and the Eskimo on the back trail to "Crane City," Cape Columbia.

I did this partly because of the possibility that there might be complications there in which Borup, who was new to the work, would feel the need of a man of Marvin's wider experience, and partly because many of our alcohol and petroleum tins had sprung leaks in the rough going of the last few days, and an additional supply was needed to make up for present and possible future loss.

The change of the loads was effected in a few minutes, without delay to the main party, which kept right on, and Marvin and his dusky companion were soon out of sight.
The captain's third camp was reached before dark that night.

All day long the wind kept us company, and we could see by the water clouds all about us that the leads were open here and there in every direction.
Fortunately none of them immediately crossed our trail, and the going was much as on the previous day.
[Illustration: APPROACHING A LEAD THROUGH ROUGH ICE] During this march we saw, above the summits of the great land mountains which were still visible to the south of us, a flaming blade of yellow light which reached half way to the zenith--in other words, after nearly five months, we could almost see the sun again as he skimmed along just under the southern horizon.