After a meager breakfast, they started on their return, finding the snow very deep and soft. The effect of short rations on the dogs was noticed. They saw two seals lying on the ice, which Frederick tried hard to shoot, but in vain. Lockwood was especially anxious to get a seal, for it looked as if they would have to kill one dog to save the remainder. After much trouble for want of food, they resumed their journey on the 17th, verifying at various points the observations that had been previously made in regard to the great ice-wall and the lake over which they had already passed. On reaching the end of the lake, they began the ascent of the ravine. The snow at the head of the ravine was very soft and deep, and they had hard work to get through it. Arriving at the big snow-drift which they had descended with so much difficulty and danger, it became a question how to ascend, but they managed it by first cutting some steps and getting the dogs up, and then, attaching them by long lines to the sledge below, men and dogs together pulled the load up the almost vertical face. The party went into camp at the old place, and decided to kill one of the dogs, yet very reluctantly, Frederick opposing it. Brainard had suggested White Kooney, but Frederick named Button, a young dog. Button had eaten up his harness that morning, and this decided his fate. He was shot by Frederick, and soon the carcass was skinned and presented to his brethren. Old Howler at once seized a hind-quarter, but the others did nothing more than smell the meat. They walked around it in a reflective mood, debating whether to yield to their hunger or to their repugnance. When the party awoke next morning, nothing remained of poor Button but some of the larger bones. On the 18th, Lockwood and Brainard ascended a neighboring mountain and got a look at the country. The ascent was easy and they gained the top in a short time; altitude, 2,008 feet. From this point they could see the “Chinese Wall” stretching off to the southwest forty miles, over hills and dales, as far as the glacier south of Fossil Mountain, although Lockwood could not recognize that particular glacier. The glaciers at the two ends of the lake, near Greely Fiord, were readily seen to be offshoots of the greater one, whose surface toward the south could be seen for several miles. In that direction, Lockwood took the bearings of several ice-capped mountains, one, as he thought, identical with a very high mountain seen to the south from Antoinette Bay. The “Chinese Wall” had the same general aspect everywhere—a vertical face of pure white or green ice upward of two hundred feet high, and extending across the country in a fashion he could liken to nothing else.