and his throat was cut by Keohane with a sailor's knife, there was hardly
any blood to let out. It was a rotten day for all three of us, blowing
too hard to travel until very late, and a second pony, Blossom, was doing
his best to die. We made some little way homeward, Keohane, James Pigg
and myself pulling the sledge with our gear on it, and Forde lifting,
carrying, and pushing Blossom along. I felt I ought to kill this animal
but I knew how angry and disappointed Scott would be at the loss, so kept
him going although he showed so much distress. It was surprising what
spirit the little brute had: if we started to march away Blossom
staggered along after us, looking like a spectre against the white
background of snow. We kept on giving him up and making to kill him, but
he actually struggled on for over thirty miles before falling down and
dying in his tracks. We built a snow-cairn over him and planted what pony
food we had no further use for on the top of the cairn.

The third pony, James Pigg, was kept fit and snug under a big snow-wall
whenever we were not marching, and he won home to Safety Camp with very
little trouble, frequently covering distances equal to our own marching
capability. Once Safety Camp had been regained we got good weather again
and James Pigg became quite frisky, ate all that we could give him, and,
to our delight, his eyes regained their brightness and he began to put on
flesh.

We spent a couple of days at Safety Camp before Captain Scott returned
with the dog teams. In order to cut off corners he shaved things rather
fine, and getting rather too close to White Island, the dog teams ran
along the snow-bridge of a crevasse, the bridge subsided, and all the
dogs of Scott's and Meares's sledge, with the exception of Osman, the
leader, and the two rear animals, disappeared into a yawning chasm. Scott
and Meares secured their sledge clear of the snow bridge and with the