The twenty-two men on Elephant Island were just at the end of their resources when the 'Yelcho' reached them.

Wild had husbanded the scanty stock of food as far as possible and had fought off the devils of despondency and despair on that little sand-spit, where the party had a precarious foothold between the grim ice-fields and the treacherous, ice-strewn sea.

The pack had opened occasionally, but much of the time the way to the north had been barred.

The 'Yelcho' had arrived at the right moment.

Two days earlier she could not have reached the island, and a few hours later the pack may have been impenetrable again.