One day I had a rather curious experience.  My best dog, Lassesen, had his left hind-paw frozen quite white.  It happened while we were all out sledging.  Lassesen was a lover of freedom, and had seen his chance of getting loose when unobserved.  He used his freedom, like most of these dogs, for fighting.  They love fighting, and cannot resist it.  He had picked a quarrel with Odin and Thor, and started a battle with them.  In the course of the fight the chains that fastened these two had got wound round Lassesen’s leg, and twisted so that the circulation was stopped.  How long he had been standing so I do not know.  But when I came, I saw at once that the dog was in the wrong place.  On a closer examination I discovered the frost-bite.  I then spent half an hour in restoring the circulation.  I succeeded in doing this by holding the paw continuously in my warm hand.  At first, while there was no feeling in the limb, it went well; but when the blood began to flow back, of course it was painful, and Lassesen became impatient.  He whined, and motioned with his head towards the affected place, as though he wanted to tell me that he found the operation unpleasant.  He made no attempt to snap.  The paw swelled a good deal after this treatment, but next day Lassesen was as well as ever, though a little lame in that leg.

The entries in my diary at this time are all in telegraphic style, no doubt owing to the amount of work.  Thus an entry in February ends with the following words:  “An Emperor penguin just come on a visit —­ soup-kettle.”  He did not get a very long epitaph.

During this week we relieved the sea party of the last of the dogs —­ about twenty puppies.  There was rejoicing on board when the last of them left the deck, and, indeed, one could not be surprised.  With the thermometer about -5deg.F., as it had been lately, it was impossible to keep the deck clean, as everything froze at once.  After they had all been brought on to the ice, the crew went to work with salt and water, and in a short time we recognized the Fram again.  The puppies were put into boxes and driven up.  We had put up a sixteen-man tent to receive them.  From the very first moment they declined to stay in it, and there was nothing to be done but to let them out.  All these puppies passed a great part of the winter in the open air.  So long as the seals’ carcasses were lying on the slope, they stayed there; afterwards they found another place.  But the tent, despised by the youngsters, came in useful after all.  Any bitch that was going to have a litter was put in there, and the tent went by the name of “the maternity hospital.”  Then one tent after another was put up, and Framheim looked quite an important place.  Eight of the sixteen-man tents were set up for our eight teams, two for dried fish, one for fresh meat, one for cases of provisions, and one for coal and wood —­ fourteen altogether.  They were arranged according to a plan drawn up beforehand, and when they were all up they had quite the appearance of a camp.