SEARCH FOR THE BUTCHER'S 151 



We had been expecting to stumble upon one of our 

 beacons before long, but this did not happen until we 

 had gone twelve and a half miles. Then one of them 

 suddenly came in sight, and was greeted with joy. We 

 knew well enough that we were on the right track, but 

 an old acquaintance like this was very welcome all the 

 same. The sun had evidently been at work up here 

 while we were in the south, as some of the beacons 

 were quite bent over, and great icicles told us clearly 

 enough how powerful the sunshine had been. After 

 a march of about twenty-five miles we halted at the 

 beacon we had built right under the hill, where we had 

 been forced to stop by thick weather on November 25. 



January 4 was one of the days to which we looked 

 forward with anxiety, as we were then due at our depot 

 at the Butcher's, and had to find it. This depot, which 

 consisted of the finest, fresh dogs' flesh, was of immense 

 importance to us. Not only had our animals got into 

 the way of preferring this food to pemmican, but, what 

 was of still greater importance, it had an extremely 

 good effect on the dogs' state of health. No doubt our 

 pemmican was good enough — indeed, it could not have 

 been better — but a variation of diet is a great considera- 

 tion, and seems, according to my experience, to mean 

 even more to the dogs than to the men on a long journey 

 like this. On former occasions I have seen dogs refuse 

 pemmican, presumably because they were tired of it, 

 having no variety; the result was that the dogs grew 



