182 ON THE BARRIER 



north and south, as one might have been tempted to do, 

 since it was usually supposed that the most frequent and 

 violent winds came from the south. We chose rightly. 

 The prevailing wind was from the east, and thus caught 

 our house on its most protected short wall. The door 

 faced west. When this work was done, we marked out 

 the way from here to the encampment below and thence 

 to the vessel with dark flags at every fifteen paces. In 

 this way we should be able to drive with certainty from 

 one place to another without losing time if a storm 

 should set in. The distance from the hut site to the 

 vessel was 2*2 geographical miles, or 4 kilometres. 

 On Monday, January 16, work began in earnest. 

 About eighty dogs six teams drove up to the first 

 encampment with all the provisions and equipment that 

 could be loaded on the sledges, and twenty dogs Stub- 

 berud's and Bjaaland's teams went with a full load up 

 to the other camp. We had some work indeed, those 

 first days, to get the dogs to obey us. Time after time 

 they tried to take the command from their masters and 

 steer their own course. More than once it cost us a 

 wet shirt to convince them that we really were the 

 masters. It was strenuous work, but it succeeded in 

 the end. Poor dogs! they got plenty of thrashing in 

 those days. Our hours were long; we seldom turned 

 in before eleven at night, and were up again at five. 

 But it did not seem particularly hard; we were all 

 alike eager for the work to be finished as soon as 



