If he had not then felt entire confidence in the promise of the War Department to relieve him without fail that summer, he would have begun his retreat early, and beyond doubt have brought all his men to safety before another winter set in or his provisions fell low.

But as it was, he put off the start to the last moment, keeping up meanwhile the scientific work of the expedition, and sending out one party to cache supplies along the route of retreat.
August 9, 1883, the march began--just two years after they had entered the frozen deep--Greely hoping to meet the relief ship oh the way.

He did not know that three weeks before she had been nipped in the ice-pack, and sunk, and that her consort, the "Yantic," had gone impotently home, without even leaving food for the abandoned explorers.

Over ice-fields and across icy and turbulent water, the party made its way for five hundred miles--four hundred miles of boating and one hundred of sledging--fifty-one days of heroic exertion that might well take the courage out of the stoutest heart.

Sledging in the Arctic over "hummock" ice is, perhaps, the most wearing form of toil known to man, and with such heavy loads as Greely carried, every mile had to be gone over twice, and sometimes three times, as the men would be compelled to leave part of the load behind and go back after it.