IN GUSINA CAMP 77 
On the lichened peat the traces of the runners were 
often quite invisible, but this did not matter as the 
reindeer’s feet had always split the crust a little. By 
far the worst tracking was over the dry moss of the old 
bogs. This was so wonderfully elastic that we always 
lost the track on it and had to cast about and pick it up 
on the other side. Our own steps in the same way left 
no impression on the dry moss. | 
Well, we stuck to this work for about three hours, 
until, in short, the track took us back in a ring almost to 
the Gusina again, when it suddenly turned and went 
straight off in an easterly direction. The man had gone 
home—wherever ‘home’ was. 
And then I came to the conclusion that I didn’t think 
much of following five reindeer and a sleigh; and that 
home was the best place for us also. I learned afterwards 
that the mysterious hunter was On Tipa. Had we only 
succeeded in finding him we should have been spared 
many days of weary walking. But we had not. So 
there was nothing more to be said, excepting what I 
uttered at the time, and that was very short. 
At this moment we were on a bit of rising ground, and 
looking out to sea we saw, apparently in the middle 
of the ice, a sail. With my glass I made her out to 
be of a sort of cutter rig. No doubt she was a walrus 
sloop. 
This time we took a slightly different line to our ford. 
As we came in sight of a little round lake a snowy owl, 
