THE RETURN JOURNEY. 



415 



We had to be especially careful to remove the snow and ice from 

 their eyes, ns sometimes they were quite blinded by it. The last 

 few days of the journey I went in front of the sledges on ' ski ' to 

 encourage the dogs, for they were very much exhausted, and 

 seeing me in front really did seem to give them new energy. 

 Fosheim, who then had to manage both the sledges and teams, 

 devised the plan of driving so close to my sledge that he had three 

 of his dogs on each side of it. By this means, when he kept 

 close behind his own team, he could also reach mine with the whip 



' OH DEAR, HOW COLD IT IS ! ' 



and touch them up, if they showed signs of leaving the course. 

 In this manner we made quicker progress. 



We had as yet seen nothing of all the bears we hoped to come 

 across as soon as we were south of Cape South- West. On our last 

 day on the bay, however, as I was leading the convoy on ' ski,' and 

 was a couple of hundred yards in front of the dogs, I passed a 

 quite new bear-track. The instant the dogs scented the fresh trail, 

 which, unfortunately, led westward, they started off as hard as 

 they could go. 



Fosheim was quick to overturn my load ; he seized hold of one 



