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He took my arm in a friendly way, and said, “Come and have some breakfast, young man.”

I sat next to him in the dining saloon of the Hans Egede, which was crowded with a strange-looking company of men and women, mostly in furs and oilskins, with their faces burned by sunlight on snow. The women were missionaries and the wives of missionaries, and their men folk wore unkempt beards.

I studied the appearance of Doctor Cook. He was not bearded, but had a well-shaven chin. He had a powerful face, with a rather heavy nose and wonderfully blue eyes. There was something queer about his eyes, I thought. They avoided a direct gaze. He seemed excited, laughed a good deal, talked volubly, and was restless with his hands, strong seaman’s hands. But I liked the look of him. He seemed to me typical of Anglo-Saxon explorers, hard, simple, true.

In response to my request for his “story,” he evaded a direct reply, until, later in the morning, the Danes and I pressed him to give us an hour in his cabin.