I have got the North Pole out of my system after twenty-three years of effort, hard work, disappointments, hardships, privations, more or less suffering, and some risks.

I have won the last great geographical prize, the North Pole, for the credit of the United States.

This work is the finish, the cap and climax of nearly four hundred years of effort, loss of life, and expenditure of fortunes by the civilized nations of the world, and it has been accomplished in a way that is thoroughly American.

I am content." [Illustration: BACK ON THE "GLACIAL FRINGE" (Land Ice of Grant Land Near Cape Columbia, April 23, 1909)] Our return from the Pole was accomplished in sixteen marches, and the entire journey from land to the Pole and back again occupied fifty-three days, or forty-three marches.

It had been, as a result of our experience and perfected clothing and equipment, an amazingly comfortable return as compared with previous ones, but a little difference in the weather would have given us a different story to tell.