g the camping site. The ponies were to march by
night and rest when the sun was high and the air warmer. Meares's dogs
were to bring up the rear--and start some hours after the ponies since
their speed was so much greater.

So we started away at 8.15 p.m., marched 7 miles and a bittock to lunch,
putting up a "top-hat" cairn at 4 miles, two cairns at the lunch camp,
one cairn three miles beyond, and so on according to plan.

Atkinson's tent gave us some biscuit, cheese, and seal liver, so that day
we lived high. After lunch we continued until the prescribed distance had
been fully covered.

We noticed that there were ice crystals like spikes, with no glide about
them, and the surface continued thus until 3 a.m. when there was a sudden
change for the better. Quite substantial pony walls were built by the
horsemen when they camped--all these marks ensuring a homeward marching
route like a buoyed channel.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BARRIER STAGE

Depots were made every 65 miles: they were marked by big black flags
flying from bamboos, and we saw one of them, Mount Hooper, nine miles
away. Each depot contained one week's rations for every returning unit.

That outward Barrier march will long be remembered, it was so full of
life, health, and hope--our only sad days came when the ponies were
killed, one by one. But hunger soon defeated sentiment, and we grew to
relish our pony-meat cooked in the pemmican "hoosh."

On November 24 Oates slew poor old "Jehu" by a pistol shot in Latitude 81
degrees 15 minutes--this being the first pony to go. The dogs had a fine
feed from the poor animal's carcass, and Meares was very glad, likewise
Dimitri.

Incidentally, the dogs were not the only ones who feasted on "Jehu's"
flesh. Pony-meat cooks very well, and it was a rare delicacy to us, the
man-haulers.

As will be gathered, Scott proposed to kill pony after pony as a
readjustment to full load became possible with the food and fodder
consumption. The travelling now was a vastly different matter to the work
of the autumn. The weather was fine and the going easy. Every day made
sledging more pleasant, for the ponies had got into their swing, and the
sun's rays shed appreciable warmth. Although we spoke of day and night
still, it must be remembered that there was really no longer night, for
the sun merely travelled round our heavens throughout the twenty-four
hours. Its altitude at midnight would be about 12 or 13 degrees, whil