202 ICE-BOUND ON KOLGUEV 
After this, leaving Hyland to lie down and rest, I 
pushed on across some small inlets to find out the nature 
of a heap of wood piled at the point of a spit of sand. 
And this it seemed served two purposes. It was both 
a guide or beacon, and also a means of supplying the 
chance wanderer with a log or two for the fire. For 
this sand-spit was quite evidently a leading passage by 
which the marsh could be entered and left. 
The fox-trap which I have figured here we found about 
two miles below our camp. It is really a form of dead- 
fall trap, and was baited with seal-fat ; but though foxes 
had been about it I could find no evidence that any had 
been lately caught. The trap was not set, and I think 
the bait had remained there from the winter catch. For 
there is no value in the fur of a summer fox. 
Had we not been better informed, the mirage to-day 
might well have deluded us into the expectation that 
our friends had come. For, as we walked home, there 
appeared on the cliffs in front of us a high flag-staff with 
a brave flag floating atop. But it dwindled as we came 
up, as well we knew it must. For it was nothing finer 
in reality than a little three-foot stick with which, when I 
