144 XEW LAND. 



turned my face homewards. Supper was ready, and we turned in 

 as expeditiously as possible, as we wanted to be up and off early 

 next morning in order to get across to ' Eidsfjord,' for so we called 

 the fjord which penetrated the land south of Store Bjornekap. 



We made quick progress up the valley. Our baggage was 

 light, and we had our old tracks to keep to. When we had been 

 driving a couple of hours my dogs winded game and set off up the 

 hillside as hard as they could go; the snow flew up like dust 

 behind them. I succeeded in stopping them at last, but at the 

 same moment ' Sergeanten ' slipped his trace and went on up the 

 slopes. 



Xot long before my starting on this trip ' Gammelgulen ' had been 

 unlucky enough to embroil himself in a violent suitor's quarrel. 

 Being of a very pugnacious nature, he had managed to have the 

 whole pack on him before he had done, and they had so bitten him 

 about the head that I could not take him with me. Altogether T 

 had only three of my old dogs on this journey I had been 

 unlucky with my dogs the previous autumn and Schei had lent 

 me three of his : ' Sergeanten,' ' Veslegut,' and ' Eotta.' 



No sooner had ' Sergeanten ' set off than one of Baumann's 

 dogs, ' Moses ' by name, broke his trace and went off too. ' Sergeanten ' 

 was an incapable dog as far as his nose was concerned, and he had 

 not the slightest idea where he should betake himself next. He 

 shilly-shallied about for a while, and then did the most sensible 

 thing he had done for a long time turned back so that I could 

 catch him again. ' Moses,' too, hung about for a time, but as he 

 did not appear to have any intention of returning we went on. 

 Soon afterwards we heard the dog giving tongue on the other side 

 of the ridge. 



There it stood, barking at a little heifer only a short way from 

 our route. I told Fosheim to shoot the heifer, and a few minutes 

 afterwards we were skinning and disjointing it. The whole thing 

 was done in an astonishingly short space of time. Half an hour 

 afterwards the dogs had devoured every scrap that could possibly 

 be eaten. 



The heifer was a poor deformed creature, one of whose cloven 

 feet stood out almost like two horns ; and if nature had treated it 



