CHAPTER XXVIII. 



HOME TO THE ' FRAM.' 



WE now made good progress homewards ; all the gaps in the 

 pressure-ice were filled with snow, and it was therefore easy for 

 us to bring our heavy sledges across them. In addition to this we 

 had the wind behind us, which increased our pace, and so enabled 

 us to sit on the sledges. The farther we went, the easier was the 

 going, until late in the afternoon, when the tin plate broke on one 

 of Schei's runners. An attempt at repairing it was unsuccessful, 

 and although Schei ran by the side, it was as much as he could do 

 to keep up with us. We then took turns in running, and later on 

 shifted the dogs turn and turn about, and in this way made good 

 progress all the same. 



While Fosheim was taking his turn at running, being as 

 warm as possible, he forgot all about his nose, which took this 

 opportunity of freezing. He knew nothing about it until it was 

 frozen so stiff that it looked like a piece of white bone in the 

 middle of his face, and he might easily have broken it off. Had 

 it gone on freezing for a little longer, he would have been noseless. 

 However, with general assistance and careful treatment, that 

 member was saved at the last moment, but it wore mourning for 

 a long time afterwards, and looked more like a dab of pitch which 

 had got into the wrong place than anything else in the world. 



When we were driving out of the fjord, and had almost reached 

 Baadsfjordnuten, a she-bear with two cubs came up towards us, 

 but turned off to the west as she was about to pass us, and then 

 continued up the fjord, where she spent a long time examining our 

 tracks, and trying to find out from them what sort of animals we 

 were. We could easily have shot her ; but we had little time, and 



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