I had a slight accident that day, a sledge runner having passed over the side of my right foot as I stumbled while running beside a team; but the hurt was not severe enough to keep me from traveling.
Near the end of the day we crossed a lead about one hundred yards wide, on young ice so thin that, as I ran ahead to guide the dogs, I was obliged to slide my feet and travel wide, bear style, in order to distribute my weight, while the men let the sledges and dogs come over by themselves, gliding across where they could.

The last two men came over on all fours.
I watched them from the other side with my heart in my mouth--watched the ice bending under the weight of the sledges and the men.

As one of the sledges neared the north side, a runner cut clear through the ice, and I expected every moment that the whole thing, dogs and all, would go through the ice and down to the bottom.

But it did not.
This dash reminded me of that day, nearly three years before, when in order to save our lives we had taken desperate chances in recrossing the "Big Lead" on ice similar to this--ice that buckled under us and through which my toe cut several times as I slid my long snowshoes over it.

A man who should wait for the ice to be really safe would stand small chance of getting far in these latitudes.