They waited till the snow fell. Then, in charge of the spectioneer, who had been among the saved, and Mr McDonald, third mate, the sledges set out. As usual, Fingal trotted off with the rest.
Even to those in the sledges, the time seemed long. Their adventures were many, the whole journey a toilsome and perilous one. But the goal was gained at last. There was the signal pole on the cliff top that had been raised to guide the Kittywake towards the creek, but where was the creek itself?
Nowhere to be seen.
It had been frozen over in the winter, and the ravine, at the bottom of which it lay, filled entirely and completely level with snow.
To find or even to guess at the whereabouts of the cave where the stores were buried under such circumstances was quite out of the question. A thousand men could hardly have found and rescued them.
If the time seemed long for those who went on this expedition, it was doubly tedious for those who waited their return.
At last, one evening, about sunset, amid thickly falling snow, Fingal came bounding into camp. Claude knew the sledges could not be far away. All rushed out to meet them. Alas! and alas! for hope seemed to die even in Dr Barrett’s heart at the dire news.
They brought two bears, and these were cut in pieces and stored.
“What is to be done now?” said Claude. “Are we to die like rats in a hole?”
“Not, I think,” was the reply, “without making one last effort to save ourselves. Were it the summer, we could live at all events as long as ammunition lasted, but we have hardly food enough to serve us to spring-time. So I propose that we get ready at once, that we provision the sledges, and make an attempt to reach the semi-Eskimo, semi-Danish settlement of Sturmstadt.”