_Please_, Cherry," he said, and
his voice was terribly anxious. I know he felt responsible: feared it was
he who had brought us to this ghastly end.

The next I knew was Bowers' head across Bill's body. "We're all right,"
he yelled, and we answered in the affirmative. Despite the fact that we
knew we only said so because we knew we were all wrong, this statement
was helpful. Then we turned our bags over as far as possible, so that the
bottom of the bag was uppermost and the flaps were more or less beneath
us. And we lay and thought, and sometimes we sang.

I suppose, wrote Wilson, we were all revolving plans to get back without
a tent: and the one thing we had left was the floor-cloth upon which we
were actually lying. Of course we could not speak at present, but later
after the blizzard had stopped we discussed the possibility of digging a
hole in the snow each night and covering it over with the floor-cloth. I
do not think we had any idea that we could really get back in those
temperatures in our present state of ice by such means, but no one ever
hinted at such a thing. Birdie and Bill sang quite a lot of songs and
hymns, snatches of which reached me every now and then, and I chimed in,
somewhat feebly I suspect. Of course we were getting pretty badly drifted
up. "I was resolved to keep warm," wrote Bowers, "and beneath my debris
covering I paddled my feet and sang all the songs and hymns I knew to
pass the time. I could occasionally thump Bill, and as he still moved I
knew he was alive all right--what a birthday for him!" Birdie was more
drifted up than we, but at times we all had to hummock ourselves up to
heave the snow off our bags. By opening the flaps of our bags we could
get small pinches of soft drift which we pressed together and put into
our mouths to melt. When our hands warmed up again we got some more; so
we did not get very thirsty. A few ribbons of canvas still remained in
the wall over our heads, and these produced volleys of cracks like pistol
shots hour after hour The canvas never drew out from the walls, not an
inch The wind made just the same noise as an express train running fast
through a tunnel if you have both the windows down.

I can well believe that neither of my companions gave up hope for an
instant. They must have been frightened but they were never disturbed. As
for me I never had any hope at all; and when the roof went I felt that
this was the end. What else could I think? We had spen