CHAPTER XXIII. 



A SAD HOME-COMING. 



AT last, on October 6, at half-past nine in the morning, we broke 

 camp at Baadsfjord, and set off homewards. We took with us 

 a tent and sleeping-bag, as well as provisions and paraffin for a 

 week. 



We made a very good beginning ; there were only a couple of 

 inches of snow on the ice, and our sledge ran splendidly, but out 

 on the fjord we got into old ice and loose snow, and the situation 

 then assumed a very different aspect. The runners of our sledge 

 were much too narrow for going of this kind, and sank into the 

 snow. Happily,, however, this state of affairs did not last very 

 long, and we soon got on to young ice again, and made good 

 progress almost the whole day. There were long, newly frozen 

 lanes, running parallel with the land, which we took to, and thus 

 were rarely obliged to travel over the old ice. We put two men 

 to the sledge, and took turns in dragging it, while the other two 

 rested for an hour. In this way we kept going all day, and when 

 we camped in the evening, on an old large floe, we had done 

 seventeen miles, 



We hoped to reach South Cape on October 7, and started betimes 

 in the morning, walking westward across ice that was as good as, 

 if not better than, on the previous day, inasmuch as there was not 

 so much old ice to be travelled over. As we were nearing South 

 Cape, about half-past five in the afternoon, we saw two men on the 

 ice running towards us from land. They were Baumann and Bay. 



Before I left the ship, I had settled with Baumann that, if we 

 should get frozen in so far from the ship that we could not return 

 before the ice had formed, he was to send some men west to our 



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