We halted at the starting-place, where we were to separate from our comrades.  None of us was particularly sentimental.  An honest shake of the hand, and so “Good-bye.”  The order of our march was as follows:  Prestrud first on ski, to show the direction and encourage the dogs.  We always went better with someone going in front.  Next came Helmer Hanssen.  He kept this place on all our journeys —­ the leading sledge.  I knew him well from our previous work together, and regarded him as the most efficient dog-driver I had met.  He carried the standard compass on his sledge and checked Prestrud’s direction.  After him came Johansen, also with a compass.  Lastly, I came, with sledge-meter and compass.  I preferred to take the last sledge because it enabled me to see what was happening.  However careful one may be, it is impossible to avoid dropping things from sledges in making a journey.  If the last man keeps a lookout for such things, great inconvenience may often be avoided.  I could mention many rather important things that were dropped in the course of our journeys and picked up again by the last man.  The hardest work, of course, falls on the first man.  He has to open up the road and drive his dogs forward, while we others have only to follow.  All honour, then, to the man who performed this task from the first day to the last —­ Helmer Hanssen.

The position of the “forerunner” is not a very enviable one either.  Of course he escapes all bother with dogs, but it is confoundedly tedious to walk there alone, staring at nothing.  His only diversion is a shout from the leading sledge:  “A little to the right,” “A little to the left.”  It is not so much these simple words that divert him as the tone in which they are called.  Now and then the cry comes in a way that makes him feel he is acquitting himself well.  But sometimes it sends a cold shiver down his back; the speaker might just as well have added the word “Duffer!” —­ there is no mistaking his tone.  It is no easy matter to go straight on a surface without landmarks.  Imagine an immense plain that you have to cross in thick fog; it is dead calm, and the snow lies evenly, without drifts.  What would you do?  An Eskimo can manage it, but none of us.  We should turn to the right or to the left, and give the leading dog-driver with the standard compass endless trouble.  It is strange how this affects the mind.  Although the man with the compass knows quite well that the man in front cannot do any better, and although he knows that he could not do better himself, he nevertheless gets irritated in time and works himself into the belief that the unsuspecting, perfectly innocent leader only takes these turns to annoy him; and so, as I have said, the words “A little to the left” imply the unspoken addition —­ perfectly understood on both sides —­ “Duffer!” I have personal experience of both duties.  With the dog-driver time passes far more quickly.  He has his dogs to look after, and has to see that