Ahead of me lay--my dream, the goal of that irresistible impulse which had driven me for twenty-three years to measure myself, time after time, against the frigid _No_ of the Great North.
Should I succeed?
Should I return?
Success in the attainment of 90 deg.
North would not inevitably carry with it the safe return.

We had learned _that_ on recrossing the "big lead" in 1906.

In the Arctic the chances are always against the explorer.

The inscrutable guardians of the secret appear to have a well-nigh inexhaustible reserve of trump cards to play against the intruder who insists upon dropping into the game.

The life is a dog's life, but the work is a man's work.
As we steamed northward from Cape York, on the first day of August, 1908, I felt that I was now in truth face to face with the final struggle.