Of the critical situation Hayes writes: "We had thirty-six biscuits and three pints of bread-dust. Each man had a biscuit a day, a quantity insufficient for our need. The hunt having failed utterly to supply us, we must get our food of the natives or not at all. Accordingly we made with the Angekok a treaty by which his people are to furnish as much food as we might want, and we are to supply them with wood, iron, knives, and needles at rates to be subsequently fixed upon." It was a fortnight before the Inuits again appeared, and meanwhile the whale-boat was broken up for fuel. All of the party had become frightfully weak and three men were sick. Hayes piteously says: "What _shall we_ do? Will the Eskimos never come? I never go out without expecting to find a corpse when I return." At last, after two weeks, the natives returned, coming from a hunt with the greater part of three bears. While the starving men "were fattening on the juicy bear's meat they left us," yet there was a key-note of fear in the statement that the natives "were very chary of the meat, as we obtained only enough to suffice us for a few days." Their gratitude for trifles and the willingness of the natives to give their last bit of food was shown a few days later by a young Eskimo. "He had nothing on his sledge but two small pieces of blubber, four birds, about a pound of bear meat, a bear-skin, and a small lamp. All these he laid at our feet." Temporarily saved from death by starvation through food from the natives, the whites planned for the future. There was much wild talk about wintering at Cape York, of hiring the natives to take them across the unknown ice of Baffin Bay to Upernavik. Finally it was agreed that life depended on their obtaining supplies from or by their return to Kane and the _Advance_--either of these alternatives a difficult as well as a bitter resort. The distance along the ice-foot of the winding coast was estimated to be about three hundred miles, and it was hard to admit that their departure from the brig against the wishes and advice of their commander had been a serious mistake. At least they would try their friend Kalutunah on their various schemes before admitting their error.