By keeping the daily issue of food down to this pitiful amount Greely calculated that he would have enough to sustain life until the first of March, when with ten days' double rations still remaining, he would make an effort to cross the strait to Littleton Island, where he thought--mistakenly--that Lieutenant Garlington awaited him with ample stores.

Of course all game shot added to the size of the rations, and that the necessary work of hunting might be prosecuted, the hunters were from the first given extra rations to maintain, their strength.

Fuel, too, offered a serious problem.

Alcohol, stearine, and broken wood from a whaleboat and barrels, were all employed.
In order to get the greatest heat from the wood it was broken up into pieces not much larger than matches.
And yet packed into that noisome hovel, ill-fed and ill-clothed, with the Arctic wind roaring outside, the temperature within barely above freezing, and a wretched death staring each man in the face, these men were not without cheerfulness.

Lying almost continually in their sleeping bags, they listened to one of their number reading aloud; such books as "Pickwick Papers," "A History of Our Own Times," and "Two on a Tower." Greely gave daily a lecture on geography of an hour or more; each man related, as best he could, the striking facts about his own State and city and, indeed, every device that ingenuity could suggest, was employed to divert their minds and wile away the lagging hours.