THE GRANITE HARBOUR EXPEDITION 367 



unexpectedly on their holes nearly buried in snow. Deb and 

 Forde were looking down one to see the thickness of the 

 mushy ice when one leaped out three feet and, as Forde said, 

 { It nearly frightened a life out of me ! ' 



" Gran had laid the poles up against the floe and left his 

 bag just behind, when the mush gave way and in he went to 

 his waist. He rescued his bag clinging to the pole, and some- 

 how managed to crawl up the ice-foot, but he was pretty wet 

 and soon very cold. 



" Deb and Forde sat on their packs by the firmer ice, 

 and I walked along the sea ice (while Gran went along the 

 ice-foot) to the north. We found it all just the same. At 

 every footstep water oozed up, and evidently the floe was 

 melting top and bottom and had never been thick. This 

 doubtful area was forty feet wide. At the north, a quarter of 

 a mile from our track, I managed to get on the ice-foot over 

 three visible cracks, and I don't know how many buried in 

 snow. We returned to the others to find Deb had had one 

 foot through. Having regard to the difficulty of the surface 

 all the way to our camp — eight miles of two-foot soft snow, 

 through which we could only pull the sledge at half a mile an 

 hour with every muscle taut, — I decided it was not safe to 

 stay over on this shore ; for a few days' sun would probably 

 convert this mushy belt into open water, and we should have 

 no ready line of retreat at all. So in view of the Owner's 

 lectures on caution and my sledging instructions, I abandoned 

 the idea of camping two or three days on this north side, and 

 we lugubriously determined to push back with our packs to 

 the sledge two miles away. First, however, we had to get 

 Trigger off the ice-foot. I went forward to pick up his bag, 

 and suddenly went through halfway up to my thigh. Luckily 

 the other foot kept firm, and I leant backwards and sat back 

 on the less tricky mush. Then we lashed bag ropes and 

 threw them towards him. He threw the tent poles on to the 

 mush and then launched himself full length on the stuff, grip- 

 ping the poles. The whole floe rocked up and down like 

 jelly, but the poles kept him up, and he got across to us with- 

 out further mishap. It would have been impossible to scramble 

 out if we had gone through, for there was nothing firm to grip. 



" Forde also volunteered that he thought * You done a 

 wise thing to give that place a miss.' 



