CAPTAIN SCOTT'S OWN STORY. 
19 
rti CVArta. 
IN WHICH EVERY INCH OF SPACE WAS UTILIZED. 
covered, tents up again, and cookers going. 
Meanwhile, the dog -drivers, after a long, 
cold wait at the old camp, have packed the 
last sledge and come trotting along our 
tracks. They try to time their arrival in the 
new camp immediately after our own, and 
generally succeed well. The mid-march halt 
runs into an hour, and at the end we pack 
up and tramp forth again. We generally 
makd^our final camp about eight o’clock, 
and within an hour and a half most of us are 
in our sleeping-bags. Such is at present the 
daily routine. At the long halts we do our 
best for our animals by building snow walls 
and improving their rugs, etc.’ ? 
The Dogs Fall Into a Crevasse. 
T he farthest depot laid, there was no 
reason for keeping the swifter and the slower 
units together, and Scott 
himself, with Meares, Wil- 
son, and Cherry-Garrard, 
pushed on with the dogs, 
completing the return 
journey lightly laden in 
six marches. The night 
before reaching Safety 
Camp, “ we made a start 
as usual about 10 p.m. 
The light w r as good at first, 
but rapidly grew worse till 
we could see little of the 
surface. About an hour 
and a half after starting 
we came on mistily-cut- 
lined pressure ridges. We 
w ere running by the 
sledges. Suddenly Wilson 
shouted, ‘ Hold on to the 
sledge ! ’ and I saw him 
slip a leg in a crevasse. 
I jumped to the sledge, 
but saw nothing. Five 
minutes after, as the 
teams were trotting side 
by side, the middle dogs 
of our team disappeared. 
In a moment the whole 
team was sinking. Two 
by two we lost sight of 
them, each pair struggling 
for foothold. Osman, the 
leader, exerted all his 
great strength and kept 
a foothold ; it was won- 
derful to see him. The 
sledge stopped, and we 
leapt aside. The 
situation was cJear in another moment. We 
had actually been travelling along the bridge 
of a crevasse ; the sledge had stopped on 
it, whilst the dogs hung in their harness in 
the abyss, suspended between the sledge and 
the leading dog. Why the sledge and our- 
selves didn’t follow the dogs we shall never 
know. I think a fraction of a pound of added 
weight must have taken us down. As soon 
as we grasped the position we hauled the 
sledge clear of the bridge and anchored it. 
Then we peered into the depths of the crack. 
The dogs were howling dismally, suspended 
in all sorts of fantastic positions and evidently 
terribly frightened. Two had dropped out 
of their harness, and we could see them indis- 
tinctly on a snow-bridge far below. The rope 
at either end of the chasm had bitten deep 
into the snow at the side of the crevasse, and 
with the weight below it was impossible to 
