During the night snow fell heavily, and the floor-cloths of the tents got wet through, as the temperature had risen to +25° Fahr.  One of the things we hoped for in those days was a temperature in the neighbourhood of zero, for then the snow surface would be hard, we would not be troubled by damp, and our gear would not become covered in soft snow.  The killers were blowing all night, and a crack appeared about 20 ft. from the camp at 2 a.m.  The ice below us was quite thin enough for the killers to break through if they took a fancy to do so, but there was no other camping-ground within our reach and we had to take the risk.  When morning came the snow was falling so heavily that we could not see more than a few score yards ahead, and I decided not to strike camp.  A path over the shattered floes would be hard to find, and to get the boats into a position of peril might be disastrous.  Rickenson and Worsley started back for Dump Camp at 7 a.m. to get some wood and blubber for the fire, and an hour later we had hoosh, with one biscuit each.  At 10 a.m.  Hurley and Hudson left for the old camp in order to bring some additional dog-pemmican, since there were no seals to be found near us.  Then, as the weather cleared, Worsley and I made a prospect to the west and tried to find a practicable road.  A large floe offered a fairly good road for at least another mile to the north-west, and we went back prepared for another move.  The weather cleared a little, and after lunch we struck camp.  I took Rickenson, Kerr, Wordie, and Hudson as a breakdown gang to pioneer a path among the pressure-ridges.  Five dog teams followed.  Wild’s and Hurley’s teams were hitched on to the cutter and they started off in splendid style.  They needed to be helped only once; indeed fourteen dogs did as well or even better than eighteen men.  The ice was moving beneath and around us as we worked towards the big floe, and where this floe met the smaller ones there was a mass of pressed-up ice, still in motion, with water between the ridges.  But it is wonderful what a dozen men can do with picks and shovels.  We could cut a road through a pressure-ridge about 14 ft. high in ten minutes and leave a smooth, or comparatively smooth, path for the sledges and teams.

CHAPTER V

OCEAN CAMP

In spite of the wet, deep snow and the halts occasioned by thus having to cut our road through the pressure-ridges, we managed to march the best part of a mile towards our goal, though the relays and the deviations again made the actual distance travelled nearer six miles.  As I could see that the men were all exhausted I gave the order to pitch the tents under the lee of the two boats, which afforded some slight protection from the wet snow now threatening to cover everything.  While so engaged one of the sailors discovered a small pool of water, caused by the snow having thawed on a sail which was lying in one of the boats.  There was not much—­just a sip each; but, as one man wrote in his diary, “One has seen and tasted cleaner, but seldom more opportunely found water.”