The men arranged their sleeping-bags against the walls with the feet towards the middle of the floor, and when they had crept in through the narrow entrance, they groped their way into the bags. Then, half lying and half sitting, with their shoulders against the stones behind them, they made themselves as comfortable as they could during the long period of darkness. They divided themselves into messes for the purpose of feeding, and two cooks prepared the food, an operation that was always difficult and unpleasant. It had, of necessity, to be carried on inside the hut, and when the two men were kneeling in a cramped-up position over the make-shift for a stove in the middle of the floor, there was no room for any one else to stretch his legs. Every one had to huddle up as closely as possible, and as all the smoke from the stove had to find its way out of the hut the best way it could, the atmosphere during cooking time was far from refreshing. The heat from the stove also thawed the ground immediately under it, and the snow on the canvas over it, with the result that the cooking of every meal meant a thorough wetting as well as a choking for the cooks. As soon as the hut was finished, a small party pushed on towards Cape Sabine in order to locate the provisions stored there. On October 9 they returned with the news that despatches had been found, stating the _Proteus_ had foundered in the ice on July 24 just off the cape, and that the crew and relief party had started to the south so as to meet the second relief steamer _Yantic_, or a Swedish steamer which was known to be in the locality, and send on help to the Greely expedition. The little party also discovered some provisions and the whale-boat, previously abandoned on the ice, which had drifted ashore near the cape. This was subsequently used as firewood when all other fuel was exhausted. The news of the disaster to the _Proteus_ was a serious blow to the expedition, as it meant that no help would be able to reach them until the following spring at the earliest, and, in the meantime, they would be compelled to exist as best they could upon their meagre stock of provisions. The relief party who had visited the cape on their way from the wreck of the _Proteus_ had very considerably reduced the stores which the Greely party counted on finding, and when they obtained the remnants which were left, part of the bread was found to be a mass of green slimy mildew. The men had now been on reduced rations for many days, and so hungry were the members of the band sent to convey the stores from Cape Sabine to the hut that when the green mouldy stuff was thrown out by the officer in charge, the men flung themselves on to it and devoured it despite all he could do to persuade them from such a course.