everyone was on the floating floe as we
believed, except Teddie Evans, Forde, and Keohane, who with one pony
were on their way back from Corner Camp. So we searched the Barrier
for signs of their tent and then saw that there was a tent at Safety
Camp, which meant evidently to us that they had returned. The obvious
thing was to join up with them and go round to where the pony party
was adrift, and see if we could help them to reach the safe ice. So
without waiting for breakfast we went off six miles to this tent. We
couldn't go now by the Gap, for the ice by which we had reached land
yesterday was now broken up in every direction and all on the move
up the Strait. We had no choice now but to cross up by Crater Hill
and down by Pram Point and over the pressure ridges and so on to
the Barrier and off to Safety Camp. We couldn't possibly take a dog
sledge this way, so we walked, taking the Alpine rope to cross the
pressure ridges, which are full of crevasses.

We got to this tent soon after noon and were astonished to find that
not Teddie Evans and his two seamen were here, but that Scott and Oates
and Gran were in it and no pony with them. Teddie Evans was still on
his way back from Corner Camp and had not arrived. It was now for the
first time that we understood how the accident had happened. When we
had left Safety Camp yesterday with the dogs, the ponies began their
march to follow us, but one of the ponies was so weak after the last
blizzard and so obviously about to die that Bowers, Cherry-Garrard,
and Crean were sent on with the four capable ponies, while Scott,
Oates, and Gran remained at Safety Camp till the sick pony died,
which happened apparently that night. He was dead and buried when
we got there. We found that Scott had that morning seen the open
water up to the Barrier edge and had been in a dreadful state of
mind, thinking that Meares and I, as well as the whole pony party,
had gone out into the Strait on floating ice. He was therefore much
relieved when we arrived and he learned for the first time where the
pony party was trying to get to fast ice again. We were now given
some food, which we badly wanted, and while we were eating we saw in
the far distance a single man coming hurriedly along the edge of the
Barrier ice from the direction of the catastrophe party and towards
our camp. Gran went off on ski to meet him, and when he arrived we
found it was Crean, who had been sent off by Bowers with a note,
u