me better, Douglas said,
and then push on to Donald's and wait for Tom there.

Douglas's story made it plain that the weather conditions on Grand Lake
had been fierce enough to appal any man, but as there had been no snow
since Friday night I could not understand what Tom was doing at the
rapid on Sunday, and with Mackenzie's consent I had Mark immediately
harness the post dogs and drive me up to his house. I arrived there
considerably incensed by his inactivity, but I must say that his
explanation was adequate. He asked me if I had been able to see
anything of Grand Lake, and made me realise what it meant to be out
there with a high west wind of Arctic bitterness drifting the snow in
great clouds down its thirty-seven miles of unbroken expanse. There
was no doubt that the men had done the best they could, and after
instructing Tom that, if more provisions were needed, to obtain them at
Donald's at my expense, and receiving from him an assurance that he
would again start for Hubbard's body as soon as the weather would
permit, I returned, mollified, to the post.

It was on this day (Sunday, March 13th) that I received my first news
from home and the outside world, Monsieur Duclos, who had been on a
trip north, bringing me two telegrams from New York. They conveyed to
me the comforting assurance that all was well at home, being replies to
the dispatches I had sent in December. Received at Chateau Bay, they
had been forwarded to me three hundred and fifty miles by dog teams and
snowshoe travellers.

Tom Blake started on Monday morning, the 14th, and Tuesday at noon
joined George and Duncan at Donald's. On Wednesday the three men began
their march up the Susan. The weather continuing fair, they made good
progress and had no difficulty in finding the site of our last camp.
Hubbard's body, with the tent lying flat on top of it, was under eight
feet of snow. Near the spot a wolverine had been prowling, but the
body was too deeply buried for any animal to scent it, and in its quiet
resting place it lay undisturbed. It was fortunate that it had not been
placed on a stage, as I had suggested; for in that event it would
undoubtedly have been destroyed.

Continuing on inland, the men recovered the photographic films, the
sextant, my fishing rod, and other odds and ends we had dropped on the
trail as far back as Lake Elson. Tom and Duncan praised George
unstintingly for the unvarying accuracy with which he located the
th