Five days passed before the weather became calm enough for a second attempt southward, but on the 20th the dog-sledge again started for the “Discovery.” The settled weather that favoured our travellers this time, enabled us to take active measures to prepare our sledge crews for their coming work. Each day a pair of crews left the ship for practice with their sledges, and thus a store of pemmican, bacon, &c., was deposited at Black Cape to help forward the Greenland division of sledges from the “Discovery.”
Before breakfast on 1st of April a man came down with a report that a large white animal had just been seen a quarter of a mile from the ship. This seemed a very extraordinary piece of news, for our walking parties had scoured the whole country, sometimes as much as thirteen hours away from the ship, without finding even a track of game, and had as yet brought nothing on board except one small white feather from the breast of a ptarmigan or snowy owl.
The general opinion at first sight was that the date added a peculiar significance to the story, but at any rate it was advisable to lose no time in seeing whether the mysterious animal was sufficiently “materialised” to leave any tracks. Accordingly two of us took our rifles, and sure enough we found a large wolf track at the spot indicated. For hours we patiently followed the marks. They took us a long circuit shoreward. There appeared to be three animals, but we could not be certain, for the track often doubled on itself. All at once an unpleasant suspicion flashed across us—could it be that anything had happened to our travellers, and that we were following their dogs in mistake for wolves? The tracks were very large, measuring as much as six inches long by four and a-half wide, and the centre nails were long, and turned outwards. While we debated, our suspicions were set at rest by a loud howl, not as prolonged as a black Canadian wolf’s, but wolfish certainly, for there was no mistaking the fierce misery of the note. He had caught sight of us, and, as usual with his species, given a view halloo. Presently we saw him, three hundred yards off—a gaunt, yellowish white beast—cantering along at a swift slouching gait. When we stopped, he stopped. We lay down, and one of us rolled off on the snow out of sight, and made a long detour in hope of surprising him, but he seemed to know the range of our rifles to a nicety, and at length we saw him canter off southwards unharmed by the long shots we sent after him. As we walked back, we could not but wonder what had induced wolves to come north into a desert where for miles and miles there was not so much as a stone above the snow. The mystery was soon explained. Tracks of four hunted musk oxen were found a couple of miles off. No doubt the wolves had driven them from some southern feeding-ground. They travelled so rapidly that our hunting party despatched after them failed even to catch sight of them.
The discovery that there was some game in the country was a very cheering one. If it was not a land flowing with milk and honey, it was at any rate not so bad as it might be, and we went back to our sledging preparations with a hope that we should fall in with either the wolves or the oxen during our travels.
The weather was now sufficiently settled to warrant the departure of the main travelling parties. It was arranged that they should consist of two separate divisions of eight-men sledges. Lieutenant Aldrich, with the sledge “Challenger,” would explore the shore to the north-west in search of land trending northward. He would be supported by Lieutenant Giffard’s sledge, the “Poppie,” which would travel with the “Challenger” to a distant point, re-provision her there, return to Floeberg Beach, and then carry out depôts of food and fuel for the “Challenger’s” homeward journey.
The northern division, under the command of Captain Markham, would consist of his sledge, the “Marco Polo,” and Lieutenant Parr’s, the “Victoria,” supported by the “Alexandra,” commanded by Mr. White, and the writer’s own sledge, the “Bulldog.” In addition to these, a four-man sledge led by Briant, a petty officer of H.M.S. “Discovery,” would help us forward for three or four days. The routes of both detachments lay together as far as Cape Joseph Henry. At that point the northern parties would replenish their stores from the supporting sledges and from the large depôt of pemmican placed there in the autumn, then, leaving the land, endeavour to force a passage due northward over the floes. Meantime, a depôt for their return would be carried out by the “Bulldog,” and left at some suitable spot at Cape Joseph Henry. Owing to the impossibility of depositing autumn or, indeed, any other depôts, sledge-travelling away from a coast has never yet been carried to any distance. We looked upon this attempt in the light of a more than doubtful experiment. It nevertheless promised a higher northern latitude than the coast-line route. When we compared notes amongst ourselves after we had started, one or two thought that N. lat. 86° might be attainable, but the majority drew the line at 85°.
CAMP OF SLEDGE PARTY.