If we can keep them to 82ｰ S.I can honestly say it is through their work we have got through." On January 8 Mackintosh joined Joyce, and from that point the parties, six men strong, went forward together.

They marched in thick weather during January 10, 11, and 12, keeping the course by means of cairns, with a scrap of black cloth on top of each one.

It was possible, by keeping the cairns in line behind the sledges and building new ones as old ones disappeared, to march on an approximately straight line.

On the evening of the 12th they reached lat.

81ｰ S., and built a large cairn for the depot.