THROUGH THE PRESSURE RIDGE 153 
quiry I found that Templeman had not turned up. 
It was now almost dark and I was a good deal con¬ 
cerned about his absence, for though a splendid 
cook and as willing a worker as a man could be, 
he was not strong enough to withstand for very 
long the hardships that would surround him if he 
were lost on the ice. I set out to look for him and 
we fired off guns and shouted and altogether made 
all the noise we could to attract his attention. 
Finally to my great relief I saw him floundering 
through the snow on a big floe about a quarter of a 
mile from the camp. My revulsion of feeling was 
like that of an anxious parent who thinks his young¬ 
ster has gone off and got lost and then discovers him 
making his way homeward. In the parable the 
prodigal son receives the fatted calf; in practice I 
fear that most errant youngsters receive a sound 
spanking and perhaps do not suspect until years 
later that this disguises a tremendous feeling of 
joy, which expresses itself perversely in punish¬ 
ment for recklessness and warnings 4 ‘never to do it 
again.” So when I espied poor Templeman my 
first impulse was to berate him soundly for wander¬ 
ing from the narrow, though none too straight, path 
back to camp but when I got near enough to see 
that he was wading through snow, into which he 
sank to the waist at every step, and had had the 
good sense to keep his pickaxe with him, though he 
