Hawtrey's Deputy by Harold Bindloss

When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the men, and contrived to make a landing on the ice with difficulty only to find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though he floundered shorewards a mile or two there was nothing except the shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions, but the skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, had little doubt in his mind. After that he waited two days, until a strong breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and then stood out for open water, where he hove the _Selache_ to for a week or so. Then he proceeded northwards to the inlet fixed upon.

He was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march from the schooner, he made a depot of provisions, and raised a beacon of piled-up stones beside them. At times when it was clear he could see the top of a great range high up against the Western sky, but those times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain or wrapped in clammy fog.