212 DEPOT JOURNEYS 



happening. However careful one may be, it is impos- 

 sible to avoid dropping things from sledges in making a 

 journey. If the last man keeps a lookout for such 

 things, great inconvenience may often be avoided. I 

 could mention many rather important things that were 

 dropped in the course of our journeys and picked up 

 again by the last man. The hardest work, of course, 

 falls on the first man. He has to open up the road and 

 drive his dogs forward, while we others have only to 

 follow. All honour, then, to the man who performed this 

 task from the first day to the last Helmer Hanssen. 



The position of the "forerunner" is not a very enviable 

 one either. Of course he escapes all bother with dogs, 

 but it is confoundedly tedious to walk there alone, 

 staring at nothing. His only diversion is a shout from 

 the leading sledge : " A little to the right," " A little to the 

 left." It is not so much these simple words that divert 

 him as the tone in which they are called. Now and 

 then the cry comes in a way that makes him feel he is 

 acquitting himself well. But sometimes it sends a cold 

 shiver down his back; the speaker might just as well 

 have added the word " Duffer !" -there is no mistaking 

 his tone. It is no easy matter to go straight on a surface 

 without landmarks. Imagine an immense plain that 

 you have to cross in thick fog; it is dead calm, and the 

 snow lies evenly, without drifts. What would you do? 

 An Eskimo can manage it, but none of us. We should 

 turn to the right or to the left, and give the leading dog- 



