The only chances of life were in the shifting and uncertain forces of nature--a cold winter to keep the ice-field intact, a stormless season to save their floe from breaking up under pressures, and the usual Greenland current to set them to the south. With good fortune they might hope to get into open water seven months hence, when by their boats they could possibly reach the Danish settlements of West Greenland. But could they live seven months through a winter barely begun? At least they would do their best. They were fourteen men, all good and true, in health, skilled to the sea, inured to hardships and privations, accustomed to discipline, and inspired by a spirit of comradeship. Their floe had been wasted at its edges by the enormous pressure, as well as by the action of the sea, so that they were thankful for Hegemann's foresight in placing the coal house remote from the ocean. All that sailor ingenuity could plan was now done to make life healthy and comfortable in their ark of safety. Outer snow walls were erected so that there was a free walk around the main house, giving also a place for the protection of stores against storms and shelter for daily exercise. From their flag-staff was displayed on fine days a flag, emblem of their love for their country, of their faith in themselves, and of aspiration and uplifting courage in hours of danger. The hunt engaged their activities whenever signs of game were noted. Once a bear and her cub came from the land, and the mother was slain and added to their larder. An effort was made to keep the cub as a kind of pet. After a while she escaped and was caught swimming across a narrow lane of water. To keep her secure they fastened her to an ice-anchor, where she was at first very much frightened, but later she ate with avidity such meat as was thrown to her. To add to her comfort a snow house was built, with the floor strewed with shavings for her bed, but the record runs: "The young bear, as a genuine inhabitant of the arctic seas, despised the hut and bed, preferring to camp in the snow." Some days later she disappeared, and with the heavy chain doubtless sank to the bottom of the sea. Nor were these castaways unmindful of the charms of arctic nature. Their narratives tell us of the common beauties around them--the snow-crystals glittering in the few hours of sunlight like millions of tiny diamonds. Night scenes were even more impressive, through wondrous views of the starry constellations and the recurring and evanescent gleams of the mystical aurora. Under the weird auroral light the white snow took at times a peculiar greenish tint, and with it, says an officer, "One could read the finest writing without trouble. One night it shone so intensely that the starlight waned and objects on our field cast shadows." But in its main aspects life on the ice-pack was full of dread in which nervous anxiety largely entered.