d standing thus till the first dawn of twilight, bold,
tenacious, indomitable, and seemed to defy the tempest that roared
round him.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE RETURN

The wind went down about six in the morning, and turning suddenly
north cleared the clouds from the sky; the thermometer marked 33
degrees below zero. The first rays of the sun reached the horizon
which they would gild a few days later. Hatteras came up to his two
dejected companions, and said to them, in a low, sad voice:

"We are still more than sixty miles from the spot indicated by Sir
Edward Belcher. We have just enough provisions to allow us to get
back to the brig. If we go on any further we shall meet with certain
death, and that will do good to no one. We had better retrace our
steps."

"That is a sensible resolution, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "I
would have followed you as far as you led us, but our health gets
daily weaker; we can scarcely put one foot before the other; we ought
to go back."

"Is that your opinion too, Bell?" asked Hatteras.

"Yes, captain," answered the carpenter.

"Very well," said Hatteras; "we will take two days' rest. We want
it. The sledge wants mending. I think we had better build ourselves
a snow-house, and try to regain a little strength."

After this was settled, our three men set to work with vigour. Bell
took the necessary precautions to assure the solidity of the
construction, and they soon had a good shelter at the bottom of the
ravine where the last halt had taken place. It had cost Hatteras a
great effort to interrupt his journey. All their trouble and pain
lost! A useless excursion, which one man had paid for with his life.
What would become of the crew now that all hope of coal was over?
What would Shandon think? Notwithstanding all these painful thoughts,
he felt it impossible to go on any further. They began their
preparations for the return journey at once. The sledge was mended;
it had now only two hundred pounds weight to carry. They mended their
clothes, worn-out, torn, soaked with snow, and hardened by the frost;
new moccasins and snow-shoes replaced those that were worn out. This
work took the whole day of the 29th and the morning of the 30th; the
three travellers rested and comforted themselves as well as they
could.

During the thirty-six hours passed in the snow-house and on the
icebergs of the ravine, the doctor had noticed that Dick's conduct
was very strange; he crept smellin