uite a long interval and cigars, saved up for
the occasion by Webb, were necessary before we could get courage enough
to drink to the Other Sledging Parties and Our Supporting Party.

The sun was low in the south when, cigars out and conversation lagging,
we finally toggled in for the finest sleep of the whole journey.

The cook, under a doubtful inspiration, broke forth, later on, into a
Christmas Carol:

I've dined in many places but never such as these-
It's like the Gates of Heaven when you find you've lost the keys.
I've dined with kings and emperors, perhaps you scarce believe;
And even they do funny things when round comes Christmas Eve.
I've feasted with iguanas on a lonely desert isle;
Once in the shade of a wattle by a maiden's winsome smile.
I've "grubbed" at a threepenny hash-house, I've been at a
counter-lunch,
Reclined at a clap-up cafe where only the "swankers" munch.
In short, I've dined from Horn to Cape and up Alaska-way
But the finest, funniest dinner of all was on that Xmas Day.

For the first ten miles on the afternoon of the 28th, the sail was
reefed down to prevent the sledge overrunning us on smooth patches. Not
far past the one-hundred-and-ninety-mile mound, which was missed in the
drift, we picked up some of the outward tracks--a bas-relief of three
footsteps and a yard of sledge-meter track, raised half an inch and
undercut by the wind. It was not very much, but quite a comfort when one
is navigating in blinding weather.

At 11.30 P.M. we had marched twenty-one miles, and both light and
surface were improving, so I proposed making a long run of it. Hurley
and Webb eagerly agreed, and we had a preparatory hoosh. Ten miles
scudded by monotonously without a sign of the mounds around the
one-hundred-and-seventy-mile camp. As we were in the vicinity of a point
where we had determined to diverge from our outward track, a course
was laid direct for the one-hundred-and-thirteen-mile mark. The
sledge-meter, which had been affixed, made its presence evident from
time to time by ringing like a cash register, as still another broken
spoke struck the forks. We would halt for a moment and extract the
remains. Out of the original thirty-six wire spokes, only twelve wire
and one wooden one remained. At 11.30 A.M. on December 29, a halt was
called and the sledge-meter was then lying over on its side with a
helpless expression. It indicated twenty-two miles, m