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Turning to the north, the bank of Eleanor was followed to the first camping-place, Plum Flat, an attractive clearing, where wild plums have been augmented by fruit and vegetables. Here, after a good dinner served in the open by the municipal cooks, the municipal sleeping-bags were distributed, and soft and level spots were sought for their spreading.
Opening out the stores, installing a blubber stove, &c., has kept him busy, whilst his satellite, Anton, is ever at work in the stables an excellent little man. Evans and Crean are repairing sleeping-bags, covering felt boots, and generally working on sledging kit. In fact there is no one idle, and no one who has the least prospect of idleness. Saturday, May 6.
By this time the miserable condition of their effects was beyond description. The sleeping-bags were far too stiff to be rolled up, in fact they were so hard frozen that attempts to bend them actually split the skins; the eiderdown bags inside Wilson's and C.-G.'s reindeer covers served but to fitfully stop the gaps made by such rents.
They try to time their arrival in the new camp immediately after our own and generally succeed well. The mid march halt runs into an hour to an hour and a half, and at the end we pack up and tramp forth again. We generally make our final camp about 8 o'clock, and within an hour and a half most of us are in our sleeping-bags. Such is at present the daily routine.
Towards evening we had completed the gun-platforms and made a beginning on the overhead cover. We had had no time to prepare sleeping-quarters, so spread our sleeping-bags and blankets in the caved-in trenches. About seven o'clock, as we were resting, the evening "hate" commenced. In those days the evening "hate" was a regular habit with the Hun.
But the Major, seeing the strained expression in the boys' faces, realized that the ultimatum of Bruce was a good one. Soon the three companions were snug in their sleeping-bags, dreaming of a land of grass and flowers far, far away. As soon as the submarine was safely on its course after the glacier incident, Dave, who had not slept for many hours, turned in for "three winks."
It is perhaps premature to be anxious about covering distance. In all other respects things are improving. We have our sleeping-bags spread on the sledge and they are drying, but, above all, we have our full measure of food again. To-night we had a sort of stew fry of pemmican and horseflesh, and voted it the best hoosh we had ever had on a sledge journey.
You may never have seen the great establishment itself, rising story on story just off New York's main shopping thoroughfare. But you have felt the call of their catalogue. Surely at one time or another, they have supplied you with tents or talcum; with sleeping-bags or skis or skates; with rubber boots, or resin or reels.
The weather, became bad again during the night. A blizzard kept the men in their sleeping-bags on February 21, and it was not until the afternoon of the 23rd that Mackintosh and Joyce made an attempt to lay out the cairns to the west. They found that two of the dogs had died during the storm, leaving seven dogs to haul the sledge.
The horses were quite unable to progress, sinking to their bellies, so no start was made. We shifted our tent and re-spread it on new snow well trampled down. This brief respite from our sleeping-bags freed our cramped limbs. Weather improved and we did not find it necessary after all to get back into our bags, for it was still warm and quite pleasant sitting in the tent.
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