uits we strike camp, and are soon slogging on.
But the crevasses and icefalls have been overcome, the travelling is
better, and with nothing but the hard, white horizon before us, thoughts
wander away to the homeland--sweet little houses with well-kept gardens,
glowing fires on bright hearths, clean, snowy tablecloths and polished
silver, and then the dimpled, smiling faces of those we are winning our
spurs for. Next Christmas may we hope for it? Yes, it must be.

But with the exception of Lashly and Crean that daydream never came true,
for alas, those whose dearest lived for that Christmas _never_ came home,
and the one other spared lost his wife, besides his five companions.

The two teams struggled on until after 8 p.m., when at last Scott
signalled to camp. How tired we were--almost cross. But no sooner were
the tents up than eyes looked out gladly from our dirty, bearded faces.
Once again the cooker boiled, and for that night we had a really good
square meal--more than enough of everything--pemmican with pieces of pony
meat in it, a chocolate biscuit, "ragout" raisins, caramels, ginger,
cocoa, butter, and a double ration of biscuits. How we watched Bowers
cook that extra thick pemmican. Had he put too much pepper in? Would he
upset it? How many pieces of pony meat would we get each? But the careful
little Bowers neither burnt nor upset the hoosh: it was up to our wildest
expectations. No one could have eaten more.

After the meal we gasped, we felt so comfortable.

But we had such yarns of home, such plans were made for next Christmas,
and after all we got down our fur sleeping-bags, and for a change we were
quite warm owing to the full amount of food which we so sorely needed.

After the others in my tent were asleep, little Birdie Bowers, bidding me
"Good-night," said, "Teddy, if all is well next Christmas we will get
hold of all the poor children we can and just stuff them full of nice
things, won't we?"

It was unthinkable then that five out of the eight of us would soon be
lying frozen on the Great Ice Barrier, their lives forfeited by a series
of crushing defeats brought about by Nature, who alone metes out success
or failure to win back for those who venture into the heart of that
ice-bound continent.

Our Latitude was now 85 degrees 50 minutes S., we were 8000 feet above
the Barrier. Temperature -8 degrees, with a fresh southerly wind, but we
didn't care that night how hard it blew or whether it was C