dge was surmounted, then a third, and by an hour
after the start they had arrived at the first one of Ferriss's flags.
Here the number two sledge was left, and the entire expedition, dogs and
men, returned to camp to bring up the number one McClintock loaded with
the Freja's cutter and with the sleeping-bags, instruments, and tent.
This sledge was successfully dragged over the first two hummocks, but as
it was being hauled up the third its left-hand runner suddenly buckled
and turned under it with a loud snap. There was nothing for it now but
to remove the entire load and to set Hawes, the carpenter, to work upon
its repair.

"Up your other sledge!" ordered Bennett.

Once more the expedition returned to the morning's camping-place, and,
harnessing itself to the third McClintock, struggled forward with it for
an hour and a half until it was up with the first sledge and Ferriss's
flag. Fortunately the two dog-sleds, four and five, were light, and
Bennett, dividing his forces, brought them up in a single haul. But
Hawes called out that the broken sledge was now repaired. The men turned
to at once, reloaded it, and hauled it onward, so that by noon every
sledge had been moved forward quite a quarter of a mile.

But now, for the moment, the men, after going over the same ground seven
times, were used up, and Muck Tu could no longer whip the dogs to their
work. Bennett called a halt. Hot tea was made, and pemmican and hardtack
served out.

"We'll have easier hauling this afternoon, men," said Bennett; "this
next ridge is the worst of the lot; beyond that Mr. Ferriss says we've
got nearly a quarter of a mile of level floes."

On again at one o'clock; but the hummock of which Bennett had spoken
proved absolutely impassable for the loaded sledges. It was all one that
the men lay to the ropes like draught-horses, and that Muck Tu flogged
the dogs till the goad broke in his hands. The men lost their footing
upon the slippery ice and fell to their knees; the dogs laid down in the
traces groaning and whining. The sledge would not move.

"Unload!" commanded Bennett.

The lashings were taken off, and the loads, including the great,
cumbersome whaleboat itself, carried over the hummock by hand. Then the
sledge itself was hauled over and reloaded upon the other side. Thus the
whole five sledges.

The work was bitter hard; the knots of the lashings were frozen tight
and coated with ice; the cases of provisions, the medicine ches