Sudden cold, sledging accidents, and bad ice soon caused Riley to return to the brig; but despite sea-soaked bedding, injured limbs, and exhausting labor, the rest of the boat party persevered with sledge to the open water, and, launching their whaleboat, proceeded rapidly till a closed ice-pack stopped them at Littleton Island. It is unnecessary to detail despairing delays or delusive hopes which changing conditions of ice and weather alternately aroused, during their southward journey, nor to recite the hardships and perils arising from violent gales, drifting snow, the disruption and closing of the pack, the severe cold of a rapidly advancing winter, their lack of shelter and insufficiency of proper food. Suffice it to say that, confronted by impassable ice-floes, they were finally forced, with damaged boat, depleted supplies, and impaired strength, to establish winter quarters south of Cape Parry, midway between Whale and Wostenholme Sounds. The preservation of stores, construction of shelter, and accumulation of means of subsistence now engrossed their entire energies. The construction of a hut, although facilitated by a rocky cavern, proved to be exhausting in the extreme from the difficulty of obtaining material from the frozen soil. Their most skilful hunters kept the field continually, but game failed, and from day to day food supply diminished with, to them, startling rapidity. Eventually reduced to the verge of starvation, they would have perished but for food obtained from the Esquimaux, which, though scanty and irregular, yet sustained life. Affairs went from bad to worse, and with the increasing cold and diminishing light of December it was decided that they must either perish or return to the brig; either alternative had its advocates. To decide was to act. Petersen negotiated with the Esquimaux, and by judicious admixture of persuasion, command, and force, succeeded in having the entire boat party transported by sledge to the Advance, where they were received with fraternal kindness. Hayes relates, "Dr. Kane met us at the gangway and grasped me warmly by the hand.... Ohlsen folded me in his arms, and, kissing me, threw me into his warm bed." The boat journey to Upernivik, which proved dangerous and impracticable to his small party in advancing winter, proved, with the returning summer of 1855, not difficult to the reunited party of Kane, and so ended the boat journey of Hayes and his first Arctic service.