34 2 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [July 
Vane Hill to light at intervals upon its crest bundles of 
tow well soaked in petrol. At length Clissold and I were 
left alone in the hut, and as the hours went by I grew 
ever more alarmed. It was impossible for me to conceive 
how an able man could have failed to return to the hut 
before this or by any means found shelter in such clothing 
in such weather. Atkinson had started for a point a little 
more than a mile away ; at 10.30 he had been five hours 
away ; what conclusion could be drawn ? And yet I felt 
it most difficult to imagine an accident on open floe with 
no worse pitfall than a shallow crack or steep-sided snow 
drift. At least I could feel that every spot which was 
likely to be the scene of such an accident would be searched. 
Thus 11 o'clock came without change, then 11.30 with its 
6 hours of absence. But at 11.45 I heard voices from the 
Cape, and presently the adventure ended to my extreme 
relief when Meares and Debenham led our wanderer 
home. He was badly frostbitten in the hand and less 
seriously on the face, and though a good deal confused, as 
men always are on such occasions, he was otherwise well. 
His tale is confused, but as far as one can gather he 
did not go more than a quarter of a mile in the direction 
of the thermometer screen before he decided to turn back. 
He then tried to walk with the wind a little on one side 
on the bearing he had originally observed, and after some 
time stumbled on an old fish-trap hole, which he knew 
to be 200 yards from the Cape. He made this 200 yards 
in the direction he supposed correct, and found nothing. 
In such a situation had he turned east he must have hit 
the land somewhere close to the hut and so found his way 
