0]

This day Atkinson thought he saw Campbell's party coming in, and the next
day Keohane and Dimitri came in great excitement and said they could see
them, and we were out on the Point and on the sea-ice in the drift for
quite a long time. "Last night we had turned in about two hours when five
or six knocks were hit on the little window over our heads. Atkinson
shouted 'Hullo!' and cried, 'Cherry, they're in.' Keohane said, 'Who's
cook?' Some one lit a candle and left it in the far corner of the hut to
give them light, and we all rushed out. But there was no one there. It
was the nearest approach to ghost work that I have ever heard, and it
must have been a dog which sleeps in that window. He must have shaken
himself, hitting the window with his tail. Atkinson thought he heard
footsteps!"[271]

On Wednesday, March 27, Atkinson started out on to the Barrier with one
companion, Keohane. During the whole of this trip the temperatures were
low, and both men obtained but little sleep, finding of course that a
tent occupied by two men only is a very cold place. The first two days
they made nine miles each day, on March 29 they pushed on in thick
weather for eleven miles, when the weather cleared enough to show them
that they had got into the White Island pressure. On March 30 they
reached a point south of Corner Camp, when "taking into consideration the
weather, and temperatures, and the time of the year, and the hopelessness
of finding the party except at any definite point like a depot, I decided
to return from here. We depoted the major portion of a week's provisions
to enable them to communicate with Hut Point in case they should reach
this point. At this date in my own mind I was morally certain that the
party had perished, and in fact on March 29 Captain Scott, 11 miles south
of One Ton Depot, made the last entry in his diary."[272]

"They arrived back on April 1. Yesterday evening at 6.30 P.M. Atkinson
and Keohane arrived. It was pretty thick here and blowing too, but they
had had a fair day on the Barrier. They had been out to Corner Camp and
eight miles farther. Their bags were bad, their clothes very bad after
six days: they must have had minus forties constantly. It is a moral
certainty that to go farther south would serve no purpose, and for two
men would be a useless risk. They did quite right to come back. They are
much in want of sleep, poor devils, and I do hope Atkinson will allow
himself to rest: he looks