They made the beach that afternoon, though the only sign of it was the fringe of more ragged ice and the white slope beyond. A thin haze hung about them heavy with rime, and they could not see more than a quarter of a mile ahead. When darkness fell they scraped out a hollow beneath what seemed to be a snow-covered rock, and sat upon their sleeping-bags. The cooking-lamp gave little heat. Having eaten, they huddled close together with part of their aching bodies upon the sled, but none of them slept much that night, for the cold was severe.
The morning broke clear and warmer, and Wyllard, climbing to the summit of the rock, had a brief glimpse of the serrated summits of a great white range that rose to the west and south. It, however, faded like a vision while he watched it, and turning he looked out across the rolling wilderness that stretched away to the north. Nothing broke its gleaming monotony, and there was no sign of life anywhere in the vast expanse.
They set out after breakfast, breaking through a thin crust of snow, which rendered the march almost insuperably difficult, and they had made a league or two by the approach of night. The snow had grown softer, and the thawing surface would not bear the sled, which sank in the slush beneath. Still, they floundered on for a while after darkness fell, and then lay down in a hollow. A fine rain poured down on them.
Somehow they slept, and, though this was more difficult, got upon their feet again when morning came, for of all the hard things the wanderer in rain-swept bush or frozen wilderness must bear, there is none that tests his powers more than, in the early dawn, the bracing of himself for another day of effort. Comfortless as the night’s lair has been, the jaded body craves for such faint warmth as it afforded, and further rest; the brain is dull and heavy, and the aching limbs appear incapable of supporting the weight on them. Difficulties loom appallingly large in the faint creeping light, courage fails, and the will grows feeble. Wyllard and his companions felt all this, but it was clear to them that they could not dally, with their provisions out, and staggering out of camp after a very scanty meal they hauled the sled through the slush for an hour or so. Then they had stopped, gasping, and the Indian slipped out of the traces.
“We’ve hauled that thing about far enough,” said Charly, who dropped the traces, too, and slipped away from the sled.
Wyllard stood looking at them for a moment or two with anxious eyes. It was evident that they could haul the hampering load no further, and he was troubled by an almost insupportable weariness.
“In that case,” he said, “you have to decide what you’ll leave behind.”
They discussed the subject for some minutes, partly because it furnished an excuse for sitting upon the sled, though none of them had much doubt as to the result of the council. It was unthinkable that they should sacrifice a scrap of the provisions. Then, when each man had lashed a light load upon his shoulders with a portion of the cut-up traces, they set out again, and it rained upon them heavily all that day.
During the four following days they were buffeted by a furious wind, but the temperature had risen, and the snow was melting fast, and splashing knee-deep through slush and water they made progress. While he stumbled along with the pack-straps galling his shoulders, Wyllard was conscious of little beyond the unceasing pain in his joints and the leaden heaviness of his limbs. The recollection of that march haunted him like a horrible nightmare long afterwards, when each sensation and incident emerged from the haze of numbing misery. He remembered that he stormed at Charly, who lagged behind now and then in a fit of languid dejection, and that once he fell heavily, and was sensible of a half-conscious regret that he was still capable of going on, when the Indian dragged him to his feet again. They rarely spoke to one another, and noticed nothing beyond the strip of white waste, through which uncovered brown patches commenced to break, immediately in front of them, except when they crossed some low elevation and looked down upon the stretch of dull gray water not far away on one hand. The breeze had swept the ice away, and that was reassuring, because it meant that Dampier would be at the inlet when they reached it, though now and then a horrible fear that their strength would fail them or that their provisions would run out first, crept in.
Their faces had grown gaunt and haggard, and each scanty meal had been cut down to the smallest portion which would keep life and power of movement within them. Still, though the weight of it hampered him almost intolerably, Wyllard clung to the one rifle that they had saved from the disaster at the landing and a dozen cartridges. This was a folly about which he and Charly once had virulent words.