NEW LAND! 133 



By the time we reached the point we had long been 

 alternating between hope and fear. The disappointment when 

 we arrived there was crushing : the conformation indicated, if any- 

 thing, a bay, surrounded by precipitous mountains. I drove as far 

 forward as I thought necessary to confirm this sorrowful fact, and 

 then stopped the sledge. But then one of the others said : ' Just 

 let us drive another hundred yards; it might still turn out to 



V 



CAMP IX BAUMANN FJORD. 



be a sound.' ' Well, I don't mind if we do/ I answered ; ' but 

 we shall never make a sound out of it, all the same ! ' 



I threw myself on to the load, and drove on. I was not a 

 little downcast could not even look up. As I was sitting thus, 

 with my eyes on the ground, I heard some one exclaim : ' Why, 

 if it isn't a sound after all ! ' and glancing quickly up, beheld a 

 beautiful large sound running in the hoped-for direction ! 



It was already so late in the evening that we thought it better to 

 camp. When the dogs had been tied up, and while the others were 

 pitching the tent, I took my rifle and went up the mountain-side 



