a stick; at first he jumped round, seized the stick, and crushed it between his teeth.  I thought myself lucky that it was not my hand.  I came a little nearer to him every day, until one day I risked my hand.  He gave me an ugly look, but did nothing; and then came the beginning of our friendship.  Day by day we became better friends, and now you can see what footing we are on.  The third is Snuppesen, a dark red lady; she is their sworn friend, and never leaves them.  She is the quickest and most active of our dogs.  You can see that she is fond of me; she is generally on her hind legs, and makes every effort to get at my face.  I have tried to get her out of the way of that, but in vain; she will have her own way.  I have no other animals for the moment that are worth showing —­ unless you would care to hear a song.  If so, there is Uranus, who is a professional singer.  We’ll take the trio with us, and you shall hear.”

We made for two black-and-white dogs that were lying by themselves on the snow a little way off, while the three jumped and danced about us.  As we approached the other two, and they caught sight of the trio, they both jumped up as though at a word of command, and I guessed that we had found the singer.  Lord save us, what an awful voice!  I could see that the concert was for Lasse’s benefit, and Uranus kept it up as long as we stood in his vicinity.  But then my attention was suddenly aroused by the appearance of another trio, which made an extraordinary favourable impression.  I turned to my companion for information.

“Yes,” he continued, “those are three of Hanssen’s team; probably some of our best animals.  The big black-and-white one is called Zanko —­ he appears to be rather old; the two others, which look like sausages with matches underneath, are Ring and Mylius.  As you see, they are not very big, rather on the small side, but they are undoubtedly among our best workers.  From their looks we have concluded that they are brothers —­ they are as like as two drops of water.  Now we will go straight through the mass and see whether we come across any more celebrities.  There we have Karenius, Sauen, Schwartz, and Lucy; they belong to Stubberud, and are a power in the camp.  Bjaaland’s tent is close by; his favourites are lying there —­ Kvaen, Lap, Pan, Gorki, and Jaala.  They are small, all of them, but fine dogs.  There, in the south-east corner, stands Hassel’s tent, but we shall not see any of his dogs here now.  They are all lying outside the entrance to the oil-store, where he is generally to be found.  The next tent is Wisting’s.  We must take a turn round there and see if we can find his lot.  There they are —­ those four playing there.  The big, reddish-brown one on the right is the Colonel, our handsomest animal.  His three companions are Suggen, Arne, and Brun.  I must tell you a little story about the Colonel when he was on Flekkero.  He was perfectly wild then, and he broke loose and jumped into the sea.  He