The company now numbered fifteen, the cold was intense, but one half the number had to keep stirring outside while the rest crowded into the little tent to sleep. Each took a turn of two hours, and then preparations were made to start homeward. They took the tent, furs for the rescued party, and food for fifty hours, and abandoned every thing else. The tent was folded and laid on the sledge, a bed was then made of eight buffalo skins, the sick, having their limbs carefully sewed up in reindeer skins, were then put in a reclining position on the bed, and other furs and blanket bags thrown around them. The whole was lashed together, allowing only a breathing place opposite the mouth. This _embalming_ of the sufferers, and getting them a good meal, cost four hours of exposure in a cold that had become fifty-five degrees minus. Most of the rescuers had their fingers nipped by the frost. When all was ready the whole company united in a short prayer. Now commenced the fearful journey. The sledge and its load weighed eleven hundred pounds. The hummocks were many; some of them were high, and long deviations round them must be made; some which they climbed over, lifting the sledge after them, were crossed by narrow chasms filled with light snow--fearful traps into which if one fell his death was almost certain. Across these the sledge was drawn, some of them being too wide for it to bridge them, so it had to be sustained by the rope, and steadily too, for the sick could not bear to be lashed so tight as not to be liable to roll off, and the load was top-heavy. In spite of these obstacles all went bravely for six hours. The abandoned tent was nine miles ahead, the sledge on which life depended bravely bore every strain, the new floe was gained, and the traveling improved, so that good hope was entertained that the tent, its covert and rest, would be gained. Just then a strange feeling came over nearly the whole party. Some begged the privilege of sleeping. They were not cold, they said; they did not mind the wind now; all they wanted was a little sleep. Others dropped on the snow and refused to get up. One stood bolt upright, and, with closed eyes, could not be made to speak. The commander boxed, jeered, argued, and reprimanded his men to no purpose. A halt was made and the tent pitched. No fire could be obtained, for nobody's fingers were limber enough to strike fire, so no food or water could be had.