urricanes and drifting snow and
to push towards the unknown regions to the east.

At the steepest part of the rise we dismissed our helpers and said
good-bye. McLean and Correll joined me on the sledge and we continued on
to Aladdin's Cave.

As we mounted the glacier the wind increased, carrying surface drift
which obscured the view to within one hundred yards. It was this which
made us pass the Cave on the eastern side and pull up on a well-known
patch of snow in a depression to the south of our goal. It was not long
before a momentary clearing of the drift showed Aladdin's Cave with its
piles of food-tanks, kerosene, dog biscuit and pemmican, and, to our
dismay, a burberry-clad figure moving about among the accumulation.
Murphy's party were in possession when we expected them to be on the way
south to another cave--the Cathedral Grotto--eleven and three-quarter
miles from the Hut. Of course the rising wind and drift had stopped
them.

It was then 5 P.M., so we did not wait to discuss the evident
proposition as to which of the three parties should occupy the Cave,
but climbed down into it at once and boiled up hoosh and tea. Borrowing
tobacco from the supporting parties, we reclined at ease, and then in
that hazy atmosphere so dear to smokers, its limpid blue enhanced by the
pale azure of the ice, we introduced the subject of occupation as if it
were a sudden afterthought.

It was soon decided to enlarge the Cave to accommodate five men, the
other four consenting to squeeze into Stillwell's big tent. McLean
volunteered to join Stillwell's party in the tent, while Correll and I
were to stay in the Cave with Murphy and company.

I went outside and selected ten weeks' provisions from the pile of
food-tanks and piled them beside the sledge. McLean attended to the
thermograph which Bage and I had installed in the autumn. Meanwhile, in
a fifty-mile wind, Stillwell and his men erected the tent. Hunter and
Laseron started with picks and shovels to enlarge the Cave, and, working
in relays, we had soon expanded it to eight feet by seven feet.

The men from the tent came down to "high dinner" at eight o'clock. They
reported weather conditions unimproved and the temperature -3 degrees F.

Early next morning I dug my way out and found that the surface drift
had increased with a wind of fifty-five miles per hour. It was obviously
impossible to start.

After breakfast it was arranged that those outside should have their
mea