DR. KANE'S EXPEDITION. 491 



merit that our tent and buffalo-robes might probably 

 share the same fate. Godfrey, with whom the memory 

 of this day's work may atone for many faults of a later 

 time, had a better eye than myself; and, looking some 

 miles ahead, he could see that our tent was undergoing 

 the same unceremonious treatment. I thought I saw it 

 too ; but we were so drunken with cold that we strode 

 on steadily, and, for aught I know, without quickening 

 our pace. 



" Probably our approach saved the contents of the 

 tent ; for when we reached it the tent was uninjured, 

 though the bear had overturned it, tossing the buffalo- 

 robes and pemmican into the snow ; we missed only a 

 couple of blanket-bags. What we recollect, however, 

 and perhaps all we recollect, is, that we had great diffi- 

 culty in raising it. We crawled into our reindeer 

 sleeping-bags, without speaking, and for the next three 

 hours slept on in a dreamy but intense slumber. When 

 I awoke, my long beard was a mass of ice, frozen fast 

 to the buffalo-skin : Godfrey had to cut me out with his 

 jack-knife. Four days after our escape, I found my 

 woollen comfortable with a goodly share of my beard 

 still adhering to it. 



" We were able to melt water and get some soup 

 cooked before the rest of our party arrived : it took 

 them but five hours to walk the nine miles. They were 

 doing well, and, considering the circumstances, in won- 

 derful spirits. The day was most providentially wind- 

 less, with a clear sun. All enjoyed the refreshment we 

 had got ready : the crippled were repacked in their 

 robes ; and we sped briskly toward the hummock-ridges 

 which lay between us and the Pinnacly Berg. 



"The hummocks we had now to meet came properly 

 under the designation of squeezed ice. A great chain 

 of bergs stretching from north-west to south-east, mov- 



