Everything in the power of man will be done to rescue the (Greely's) brave men." This discovery changed Greely's plans again.

It was hopeless to attempt hauling the ten or twelve thousand pounds of material believed to be at Cape Sabine, to the site of the winter camp, now almost done, so Greely determined to desert that station and make for Cape Sabine, taking with him all the provisions and material he could drag.

In a few days his party was again on the march across the frozen sea.
How inscrutable and imperative are the ways of fate! Looking backward now on the pitiful story of the Greely party, we see that the second relief expedition, intended to succor and to rescue these gallant men, was in fact the cause of their overwhelming disaster--and this not wholly because of errors committed in its direction, though they were many.

When Greely abandoned the station at Fort Conger, he could have pressed straight to the southward without halt, and perhaps escaped with all his party--he could, indeed, have started earlier in the summer, and made escape for all certain.

But he relied on the relief expedition, and held his ground until the last possible moment.