From here to off Intermediate Point we had more trouble as the tidal crack was not so well marked. It had commenced to snow at Northwesterly Point and from Intermediate Point we had it very uncomfortable. The snowfall steadily increasing blotted out every thing over a hundred feet distant, and was accompanied by a penetrating wind from the northeast and yet was damp enough to melt on our clothing, and saturate us wherever we had escaped wetting in our constant wading. Impossible to pick a route, we could only work along in a general direction, guided by the wind. For several hours it looked as if we would have to camp in the slush on the ice; then it lightened enough to let us pick a way, and at last after wading the broad ice-foot river, I stepped on the point at Observation Camp. Every thread on me was soaked with snow-water, and every joint and muscle ached with the exertion of pulling out the slush-laden snowshoes at every step. I was not inclined to complain however, for the gravel here, wet as it was, was much preferable to a foot of icy slush as a bed. I still had a dry coat and dry stockings to sleep in, though my trousers and underwear were all I had, and should have slept fairly comfortably, but for a blinding headache from the fumes of the Primus stoves, which of course went particularly wrong now. This headache lasted me until I got out for a tramp after Ooblooyah had laboured five hours sewing my trousers, which the heavy snowshoeing and lifting on the sledges had completely wrecked. It snowed incessantly after we arrived, making it impossible to pick a road through the icy swamps east of us. A seal was seen near the ice-foot just before we got ashore here, and ten brant flew about our camp at Southwest Camp. When I turned out, I was old and stiff in every joint, my feet and ankles swollen and my left foot almost out of commission from some wrench. The doctor’s salve brought it round a good deal, and I hoped to be able to use it when the weather cleared. One thing was sure, I simply could not have done the work I was doing now, when I left the _Roosevelt_ or for a good many days after. It was rather a disagreeable 4th of July celebration for us, wading through ice-water, and the weather such that I could not even fly the flag. I hoped this constant snowfall would squeeze all the moisture out of the air, so that we might have some more fine weather, though I feared that we were going to have the same weather for our return that I had in July, 1899, in Princess Marie Bay. CHAPTER XI THE RETURN FROM “FARTHEST WEST” I quote from my Journal: _July 6th._—Another day of hell, except that there has been too much water to comport with the orthodox understanding of the place. About 5 P. M. yesterday, the fog and snow lightened sufficiently for a short time, to permit studying out a route to the next point to the east, among the lakes.