November 11. —­ In weather like this, going on the march is like going to a dance:  tent, sleeping-bags, and clothes keep soft and dry as a bone.  The thermometer is about -4deg.  F. A fellow-man suddenly put down in our midst from civilized surroundings would possibly shake his head at so many degrees of frost, but it must be remembered that we have long ago abandoned the ordinary ideas of civilized people as to what is endurable in the way of temperature.  We are enthusiastic about the spring-like weather, especially when we remember what it was like down here two months ago, when the thermometer showed -76deg.  F., and the rime hung an inch thick inside the tent, ready to drop on everything and everybody at the slightest movement.  Now there is no rime to be seen; the sun clears it away.  For now there is a sun; not the feeble imitation of one that stuck its red face above the northern horizon in August, but our good old acquaintance of lower latitudes, with his wealth of light and warmth.

After two hours’ march we came in sight, at ten o’clock in the morning, of the two snow-huts that were built on the last trip.  We made straight for them, thinking we might possibly find some trace of the southern party.  So we did, though in a very different way from what we expected.  We were, perhaps, about a mile off when we all three suddenly halted and stared at the huts.  “There are men,” said Stubberud.  At any rate there was something black that moved, and after confused thoughts of Japanese, Englishmen, and the like had flashed through our minds, we at last got out the glasses.  It was not men, but a dog.  Well, the presence of a live dog here, seventy-five miles up the Barrier, was in itself a remarkable thing.  It must, of course, be one of the southern party’s dogs, but how the runaway had kept himself alive all that time was for the present a mystery.  On coming to closer quarters we soon found that it was one of Hassel’s dogs, Peary by name.  He was a little shy to begin with, but when he heard his name he quickly understood that we were friends come on a visit, and no longer hesitated to approach us.  He was fat and round, and evidently pleased to see us again.  The hermit had lived on the lamentable remains of poor Sara, whom we had been obliged to kill here in September.  Sara’s lean and frozen body did not seem particularly adapted for making anyone fat, and yet our newly-found friend Peary looked as if he had been feasting for weeks.  Possibly he had begun by devouring Neptune, another of his companions, who had also given the southern party the slip on the way to the depot in 80deg.  S. However this may be, Peary’s rest cure came to an abrupt conclusion.  Stubberud took him and put him in his team.

We had thought of reaching the depot before the close of the day, and this we could easily have done if the good going had continued; but during the afternoon the surface became so loose that the dogs sank in up to their chests, and when —­ at about six in the evening —­ the sledge-meter showed twenty-one geographical miles, the animals were so done up that it was no use going on.