This day Atkinson thought he saw Campbell’s party coming in, and the next day Keohane and Dimitri came in great excitement and said they could see them, and we were out on the Point and on the sea-ice in the drift for quite a long time.  “Last night we had turned in about two hours when five or six knocks were hit on the little window over our heads.  Atkinson shouted ‘Hullo!’ and cried, ‘Cherry, they’re in.’  Keohane said, ’Who’s cook?’ Some one lit a candle and left it in the far corner of the hut to give them light, and we all rushed out.  But there was no one there.  It was the nearest approach to ghost work that I have ever heard, and it must have been a dog which sleeps in that window.  He must have shaken himself, hitting the window with his tail.  Atkinson thought he heard footsteps!"[271]

On Wednesday, March 27, Atkinson started out on to the Barrier with one companion, Keohane.  During the whole of this trip the temperatures were low, and both men obtained but little sleep, finding of course that a tent occupied by two men only is a very cold place.  The first two days they made nine miles each day, on March 29 they pushed on in thick weather for eleven miles, when the weather cleared enough to show them that they had got into the White Island pressure.  On March 30 they reached a point south of Corner Camp, when “taking into consideration the weather, and temperatures, and the time of the year, and the hopelessness of finding the party except at any definite point like a depot, I decided to return from here.  We depoted the major portion of a week’s provisions to enable them to communicate with Hut Point in case they should reach this point.  At this date in my own mind I was morally certain that the party had perished, and in fact on March 29 Captain Scott, 11 miles south of One Ton Depot, made the last entry in his diary."[272]

“They arrived back on April 1.  Yesterday evening at 6.30 P.M.  Atkinson and Keohane arrived.  It was pretty thick here and blowing too, but they had had a fair day on the Barrier.  They had been out to Corner Camp and eight miles farther.  Their bags were bad, their clothes very bad after six days:  they must have had minus forties constantly.  It is a moral certainty that to go farther south would serve no purpose, and for two men would be a useless risk.  They did quite right to come back.  They are much in want of sleep, poor devils, and I do hope Atkinson will allow himself to rest:  he looks as though he might knock up.  Keohane did well, and is very fit.  They came in over fifteen miles yesterday, and have brought in the sledge of the Second Return Party, the one they took out being very heavy pulling.  They had no day on which they could not travel.  Here it has been blowing and drifting half the time he has been absent,” and a few days later, “We have got to face it now.  The Pole Party will not in all probability ever get back.  And there is no more that we can do.  The next step must be to get to Cape Evans as soon as it is possible.  There are fresh men there:  at any rate fresh compared to us."[273]