This was well, for water is easier to travel over than ice. Their boat was soon launched and packed with necessary stores, and by tying empty spirit tins to the sledge they converted it into a raft and towed it behind. They had to be very careful, for the gunwale of their heavily-laden boat was only three inches out of water. Fortune favoured them, several good leads of open water were found amongst the floes, and by half-past two o’clock next afternoon they had pulled their boat and sledge through water-spaces and over floes to within ten miles of the opposite shore, then, tired with the long journey, and well satisfied with the progress made, they camped on a broad piece of old floe. The men were soon in their bags and asleep, but their leader had noticed a slight change in the appearance of the coast, and an unpleasant suspicion kept him wakeful. Once and again he crept out of the tent to have another look at the familiar bays and headlands. There was soon no doubt about it, the outline _was_ changed, and they were further off. While they slept, the floe was fast carrying them back the way they had come. They must instantly start again, and by hard marching make up for the loss. They were soon under way, and all night toiled on over one floe after another, through pools and lanes of water, across spaces of broken rubble, and pasty bottomless sloughs of neither ice nor water. For fourteen hours they held out, then the men could do no more, rest and food were absolute necessities, but, on camping, they found to their dismay that the drift had been faster than their march, and they were four miles further off than when they started. Eleven hours slipped by in sorely needed but sorely begrudged rest, and when they next started the full danger of their situation was plain to all. They could no longer see into Lady Franklin Sound. The headlands of Cape Lieber had already hidden Miller Island, and were fast closing past Discovery Bay and Bellot Island. They were gliding helplessly into Kennedy Channel, and their provisions were already far spent. On holding a short consultation, it was resolved to relinquish any attempt to outmarch the drift of the pack, and that the only chance of safety lay in making a push across the drift for the nearest point of land, and never stopping till they reached it.