“I saw the depot party off yesterday. They gave the usual three cheers, with three for myself. I gave them the whole of my brother’s great wedding-cake and my last two bottles of Port, and they pulled the sledge they were harnessed to famously. But I was not satisfied. I could see it was hard work; and, besides, they were without the boat, or enough extra pemmican to make their deposit of importance. I followed them, therefore, and found that they encamped at 8 P.M. only five miles from the brig. “When I overtook them, I said nothing to discourage them, and gave no new orders for the morning; but after laughing at good Ohlsen’s rueful face, and listening to all Petersen’s assurances that the cold and nothing but the cold retarded his Greenland sledge, and that no sledge of any other construction could have been moved at all through -40° snow, I quietly bade them good-night, leaving all hands under their buffaloes. “Once returned to the brig, all my tired remainder men were summoned; a large sledge with board runners which I had built somewhat after the neat Admiralty model sent me by Sir Francis Beaufort, was taken down, scraped, polished, lashed, and fitted with track ropes and rue-raddies; the lines arranged to draw as near as possible in a line with the centre of gravity. “We made an entire cover of canvas, with snugly adjusted fastenings; and by one in the morning we had our discarded excess of pemmican and the boat once more in stowage. Off we went for the camp of the sleepers. It was very cold, but a thoroughly Arctic night; the snow just tinged with the crimson stratus above the sun, which, equinoctial as it was, glared beneath the northern horizon like a smelting-furnace. We found the tent of the party by the bearings of the stranded bergs. Quietly and stealthily we hauled away their Eskimo sledge, and placed her cargo upon the _Faith_. “Five men were then rue-raddied to the track-lines, and with the whispered word, ‘Now, boys, when Mr. Brooks gives his third snore, off with you!’ off they went, and the _Faith_ after them, as free and nimble as a volunteer. The trial was a triumph. We awakened the sleepers with three cheers; and, giving them a second good-by, returned to the brig, carrying the dishonored vehicle along with us. And now, bating mishaps past anticipation, I shall have a depot for my long trip. “The party were seen by McGary from aloft, at noon to-day, moving easily, and about twelve miles from the brig.” Eleven days later, March 31, Dr. Kane writes:— “We were at work cheerfully, sewing away at the skins of some moccasins by the blaze of our lamps, when, toward midnight, we heard the noise of steps above, and the next minute Sonntag, Ohlsen, and Petersen came down into the cabin. Their manner startled me even more than their unexpected appearance on board. They were swollen and haggard, and hardly able to speak.