Our Flag Was There.

Mason-flag was flying from his tent-pole as a signal of distress ! Would Dr . Kane hesitate ? Let him answer . "We were at work , cheerfully sewing away at the skins of mocassins , by the blaze of our

lamps , when toward midnight , we heard the noise of steps above , and the next minute Sontag , Ohlsen , and Peterson came clown into the cabin . Their manner startled me even more than their

unexpected appearance on board . They were swollen and haggard , and hardly able to speak . " Their story was a fearful one . They had left their companions in the ice , risking their own lives to bring us the news : Brooks , Baker , Wilson ,

and Pierre were all lying frozen and disabled . Where ? They could not tell ; somewhere in among the hummocks to the north and east ; it was drifting heavily round them when they parted . Irish Tom had stayed by to feed and care for the

others ; but chances were sorely against them . It was in vain to question them further . They had evidently travelled a great distance , for they were sinking with fatigue and hunger , and could hardly be rallied enough to tell us the direction in which

they had come . " My first impulse was to move on the instant with an unencumbered party : a rescue to the effective or even hopeful could not be too prompt . What pressed on my mind most was , where the

sufferers were to be looked for among the drifts . Ohlsen seemed to have his faculties rather more at command than his associates , and I thought that he might assist us as a guide ; but he was sinking with exhaustion , and if he went with us we must carry him .

" There was not a moment to be lost . While some were still busy with the new comers , and getting ready a hasty meal , others were rigging out the Little Willie with a buffalo cover , a small tent , and a package of pemmican ; and , as soon

as we could hurry through our arrangements , Ohlsen was strapped on in a fur-bag , his legs wrapped in dog-skins and eider down , and we were off upon the ice . Our party consisted of nine men and myself . We carried only the

clothes on our back . The thermometer stood at seventy-eight degrees below the freezing point . " A well-known peculiar tower of ice , called by the men the ' Pinnacly Berg , ' served as our first landmark ; other icebergs of colossal size , which stretched in long beaded lines across the bay , helped to guide us afterwards ; and it was not

until we had travelled for sixteen hours that we began to lose our way . " We knew that our lost compairions must be somewhere in the area before us , within a radius of forty miles . Mr . Ohlsen , who had been for

fifty hours without rest , fell asleep as soon as we ' began to move , and awoke now with unequivocal signs of mental disturbance . It became evident that he had lost the bearing of the icebergs which in form and colour endlessly repeated themselves ; .

and the uniformity of the vast field of snow , utterly forbade the hope of local landmarks . " Pushing ahead of the party , and clambering over some rugged ice-piles , I came to a long level floe , which I thought might probably have attracted the eyes of weary men in

cirnumstanceshke our own . It was a light conjecture , but itwas enough to turn the scale , for there was noother to balance it . I gave orders to abandon the sledge , and disperse in search of foot-marks „ . We raised our tent , placed our pemmican in cache ,.

except a small allowance for each man to carry on his person ; and poor Ohlsen , now just able tokeep his legs , was liberated from his bag . Thethermometer had fallen by this time to 49 ° 3 ' below zero , aud the wind was setting in sharply from the

north-west . It was out of the question to halt ; , it required brisk exercise keep us from freezing .. I could not even melt ice for water ; and at thesetemperatures , any resort to snow , for the purpose of allaying thirst , was followed by bloody lips and . tongue . It burnt like caustic .

"It was indispensable , then , that we should , move on , looking out for traces as we went . Yet ,, when the men were ordered to spread themselves ,, so as to multiply the chances , though they all obeyed heartily , some painful impress of

solitarydanger , or , perhaps , it may have been the varying , configuration of the ice-field , kept them closingup continually into a single group . The strange manner in which some of us were affected I now attribute as rauch . to shattered nerves as to

thedirect influence of the cold . Men like McGary and Bonsell , who had stood out our srverest marches , were seized with trembling fits and short breath ; and , in spite of all my efforts to keep up an example of sound bearing , I fainted

twice on the snow . "We had been nearly eighteen hours without water or food , when a new hope cheered us . I think it was Hans , our Esquimaux hunter , who thought he saw a broad sledge-track . The drifl