When the last sledge came to the almost vertical edge of the glacier's fringe I thought my Eskimos had gone crazy.

They yelled and called and danced until they fell from utter exhaustion.

As Ootah sank down on his sledge he remarked in Eskimo: "The devil is asleep or having trouble with his wife or we should never have come back so easily." We stopped long enough for a leisurely luncheon with tea _ad libitum_ and then pressed on until Cape Columbia was reached.
[Illustration: CRANE CITY AT CAPE COLUMBIA, ON THE RETURN] It was almost exactly six o'clock on the morning of April 23 when we reached the igloo of "Crane City" at Cape Columbia and the work was done.

Here I wrote these words in my diary: "My life work is accomplished.

The thing which it was intended from the beginning that I should do, the thing which I believed could be done, and that I could do, I have done.