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Rh ," in the words of the regretted Borup, stayed during the winter of 1900–1901 at Cape Sabine with the wife and daughter of the explorer while the latter was afield. It was he who superintended the building of the Roosevelt at Bucksport, Maine.

The last of the Peary captains was the eldest of four sons and four daughters born to Captain William and his wife, Mrs. Mary Leamon Bartlett. The best ice-master of the North, the trail-maker of the final expedition, who more than any one else besides the Commander was responsible for the discovery of the Pole, had been three times a member of the Peary forces before his surpassing seamanship put the Roosevelt at Cape Sheridan. For all but the last five of the pole-ward marches he hewed the way on foot, exceeding by 13 miles a day all previous records for progress over the ice. At the eighty-eighth parallel Captain Bob planted the flag of his native colony. Peary and his companion went on 130 miles from there. When he returned to civilisation the Commander telegraphed Governor Williams at St. John's, "I congratulate Newfoundland on its part in the discovery."

The Roosevelt's navigator and, more recently, the hero of the Karluk adventure was born in this rock-belted cradle of vikings in 1875. At seventeen he skippered a cod steamer and when still a youth piloted sealing craft in the March gulf fishery. His examinations for second and chief mate were taken at the Navigation School in St. John's, but