Nothing came of the storm we had feared. The wind blew hard enough, however, to rend and tear our now well-worn tent, and there was no shelter where we lay. We hoped to go on on the following day, but found, to our disappointment, that the way was blocked; the wind had again driven the ice in. We must remain for the present where we were; but in that case we would make ourselves as comfortable as possible. The first thing to be done was to seek for a warm, well-sheltered place for the tent, but this was not to be found. There was nothing for it but to get something built up of stone. We quarried stone in the débris at the bottom of the cliff, and got together as much as we could. The only quarrying implement we had was a runner that had been cut off a hand-sledge; but our two hands were what we had to use most. We worked away during the night. What we had at first only intended to be a shelter from the wind grew, little by little, into four walls; and we now kept at it until we had finished a small hut. It was nothing very wonderful, Heaven knows, not long enough for a man of my height to lie straight inside--I had to stick my feet out at the door--and just broad enough to admit of our lying side by side and leave room for the cooking apparatus. It was worse, however, with regard to the height. There was room to lie down, but to sit up decently straight was an impossibility for me. The roof was made of our thin and fragile silk tent, spread over snow-shoes and bamboo rods. We closed the doorway with our coats, and the walls were so loosely put together that we could see daylight between the stones on all sides. We afterwards called it the den, and a dreadful den it was, too; but we were none the less proud of our handiwork. It would not blow down at any rate, even though the wind did blow right through it. When we had got our bearskin in as a couch and lay warm and comfortable in our bag, while a good potful of meat bubbled over the train-oil lamp, we thought existence a pleasure; and the fact of there being so much smoke that our eyes became red and the tears streamed down our cheeks could not destroy our feeling of content.