BAD-WEATHER CAMP. 391 



and from them projected a point of land with a mountain on it, 

 and on the mountain were we. West of us we saw two islands, 

 neither of great extent ; one of them was a fair distance away, 

 while the other was about three miles off. But the reindeer ? 

 They were nowhere to be seen. I looked furtively at Fosheim. 

 My legs were not right yet, and perhaps I had better not go any 

 farther that day ; to say nothing of some important observations I 

 ought to take. It would perhaps be better if I went back to camp 

 and left Fosheirn to follow them up alone. It was only a matter 

 of looking well for them, especially in all the gullies and depressions, 

 and he must, sooner or later, find them, for it was down where the 

 herbage was most vigorous that they sought their pasture. 



At this juncture Fosheim showed himself to be truly great. 

 He swallowed my elaborate explanations without blinking, and at 

 once declared himself willing to go on ; but his face plainly showed 

 that he had seen through me. He then continued the chase alone ; 

 while I went down to camp and did anything that came to hand, 

 such as mending the theodolite, which had had a new accident 

 on the way, digging out the sledges, and seeing to the dogs. I 

 took a meridian altitude, which showed a longitude of 79 50', 

 cooked some dinner and had a pipe in a word tried to kill time 

 as best I could while I was waiting for Fosheim. But no Fosheim 

 returned; he appeared to be doing the thing thoroughly. He 

 never could have come across deer after all ? 



Then I began to scrape the dogs : they were so iced over, poor 

 things, that they looked like lumps of ice, and as they lay there, 

 freezing and crouching together, were having a very bad time. 

 The scraping process was usually performed with a piece of wood 

 shaped like a knife. It was an operation that, as a rule, they 

 endured with much serenity, appearing to like it and to under- 

 stand that it was for their good. But when the ice had so 

 percolated into their coats that one could not help pulling their 

 hair in the process of getting it out, they rather resented it. 



The back is the part of their bodies which is most exposed ; 

 especially the part of it which immediately precedes the tail. As 

 I have mentioned before, the dogs move farther and farther up the 

 drifts, according as the snow is blown together, and then it is that 



