The Commander was still running things and he remained the commander to the last minute; nothing escaped him, and when the time came to slow-down on provisions, he gave the orders, and we had but two spare meals a day to sustain us. The whole expedition lived on travel rations from before the time we left Cape Sheridan until we had reached Sidney, N. S., and like the keen-fanged hounds, we were always ready and fit.
It was late in May when Prof. MacMillan and Mr. Borup, with their Esquimo companions returned from Cape Jesup, where they had been doing highly important scientific work, taking soundings out on the sea-ice north of the cape as high as 84° 15' north, and also at the cape. They had made a trip that was record-breaking; they had visited the different cairns made by Lockwood and Brainard and by Commander Peary, and they had also captured and brought into the ship a musk-ox calf; and they had most satisfactorily demonstrated their fitness as Arctic explorers, having followed the Commander's orders implicitly and secured more than the required number of tidal-readings and soundings.
Prof. MacMillan, with Jack Barnes, a sailor, and Kudlooktoo, left for Fort Conger early in June, and continued the work of tidal-observations. They rejoined the _Roosevelt_ just before she left Cape Sheridan. A little later in the month, Borup went to Clements Markham Inlet to hunt musk-oxen, and from there he went to Cape Columbia, where he erected the cairn containing the record of the last and successful expedition of the "Peary Arctic Club." The cairn was a substantial pile of rocks, surmounted by a strong oaken guide-post, with arms pointing "North 413 miles to the Pole"; "East, to Cape Morris K. Jesup, 275 miles"; "West to Cape Thomas H. Hubbard, 225 miles"; while the southern arm pointed south, but to no particular geographical spot; it was labeled "Cape Columbia." Underneath the arms of the guide-post, which had been made by Mate Gushue, was a small, glass-covered, box-like arrangement, in which was encased the record of Peary's successful journey to the Pole, and the roster of the expedition, my name included. From the cross-bars, guys of galvanized wire were stretched and secured to heavy rocks, to help sustain the monument from the fury of the storms. Borup did good work, photographed the result, and the picture of the cairn, when exhibited, proved very satisfactory to the Commander.