LOSS OF THE ENDURANCE 
i?now surface would be hard, we would not be troubled by damp, 
and oiu: gear would not become covered in soft snow. The 
killers were blowing all night, and a crack appeared about 
20 ft. from the camp at 2 a.m. The ice below us was quite 
thin enough for the killers to break through if they took a 
fancy to do so, but there was no other camping-ground within 
our reach and we had to take the risk. When morning came 
the snow was falling so heavily that we could not see more 
than a few score yards ahead, and I decided not to strike camp. 
A path over the shattered floes would be hard to find, and to 
get the boats into a position of peril might be disastrous. 
Rickenson and Worsley started back for Dump Camp at 7 a.m. 
to get some wood and blubber for the fire, and an hour later 
we had hoosh, with one biscuit each. At 10 a.m. Hurley and 
Hudson left for the old camp in order to bring some additional 
dog-pemmican, since there were no seals to be found near us. 
Then, as the weather cleared, Worsley and I made a prospect 
to the west and tried to find a practicable road. A large floe 
offered a fairly good road for at least another mile to the north- 
west, and we went back prepared for another move. The 
weather cleared a little, and after lunch we struck camp. I 
took Hickenson, Kerr, Wordie, and Hudson as a breakdown 
gang to pioneer a path among the pressure-ridges. Five dog 
teams followed. Wfld's and Hurley's teams were hitched on to 
the cutter and they started ofl in splendid style. They needed 
to be helped only once ; indeed fourteen dogs did as well or 
even better than eighteen men. The ice was moving beneath 
and around us as we worked towards the big floe, and where 
this floe met the smaller ones there was a mass of pressed-up 
ice, still in motion, with water between the ridges. But it is 
wonderful what a dozen men can do with picks and shovels. 
We could cut a road through a pressure-ridge about 14 ft, 
high in ten minutes and leave a smooth, or comparatively 
smooth, path for the sledges and teams. 
85 
