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 ROBERT E. PEARY 369 should never have come back so easily. ' ' At six o^dock on the morning of April twenty-third they reached the old igloos at Cape Columbia. They had made six- teen marches in covering the four hundred and thirteen miles from the Pole to Cape Columbia. After two days at Cape Columbia and two forced marches of forty-five miles each they reached the Roosevelt. They were met by Captain Bartlett, who asked, To the response of **No" the captain told them that Marvin had been drowned at the Big Lead while scouting ahead of his party and the Eskimos had returned without him. Peary says the news staggered him and killed the joy he felt at the sight of the ship and her captain. Nature had kindly favored the journey homeward by good weather. The one disheartening feature was the one fatality of the expedition. Had it not been for the thought of the com- panion lying at the bottom of the dark, ice-covered Polar Sea, the satisfaction would have been complete. After spending some time in tidal observations and erecting monuments in memory of Marvin and the discovery of the North Pole, on the eighteenth of July the Roosevelt left her winter quarters and started South. On August twenty-sixth they left the last of their faithful Eskimos at Cape York and the Roosevelt pointed her sharp, black nose toward home. As for the faithful Eskimos, Peary left them with ample supplies of dark, rich walrus meat and blubber for their win- ter, with coffee, sugar, biscuits, guns, rifles, ammxmition, knives, hatchets, traps, and for the splendid four who stood beside him at the Pole a boat and tent each, to requite them for their energy and the hardship and toil they underwent to help their friend to the North Pole. On September fifth the ship arrived at Indian Harbor on the Labrador Coast. The first dispatch that went over the wires was to Mrs. Peary. On September twenty-first, as the Roosevelt neared the little town of Sidney, a white yacht approached her. It was
 * * The Devil is asleep or having trouble with his wife or we
 * Have you heard about poor Marvin f