Meanwhile we had brought all our things as far as possible into a place of safety; the dogs lay harnessed to reduce the risk of losing them.  Wisting was just going over to his sledge —­ he had gone the same way several times before —­ when suddenly I saw nothing but his head, shoulders and arms above the snow.  He had fallen through, but saved himself by stretching his arms out as he fell.  The crevasse was bottomless, like the rest.  We went into the tent and cooked lobscouse.  Leaving the weather to take care of itself, we made ourselves as comfortable as we could.  It was then one o’clock in the afternoon.  The wind had fallen considerably since we came in, and before we knew what was happening, it was perfectly calm.  It began to brighten a little about three, and we went out to look at it.

The weather was evidently improving, and on the northern horizon there was a sign of blue sky.  On the south it was thick.  Far off, in the densest part of the mist, we could vaguely see the outline of a dome-like elevation, and Wisting and Hanssen went off to examine it.  The dome turned out to be one of the small haycock formations that we had seen before in this district.  They struck at it with their poles, and just as they expected —­ it was hollow, and revealed the darkest abyss.  Hanssen was positively chuckling with delight when he told us about it; Hassel sent him an envious glance.

By 4 p.m. it cleared, and a small reconnoitring party, composed of three, started to find a way out of this.  I was one of the three, so we had a long Alpine rope between us; I don’t like tumbling in, if I can avoid it by such simple means.  We set out to the east —­ the direction that had brought us out of the same broken ground before —­ and we had not gone more than a few paces when we were quite out of it.  It was now clear enough to look about us.  Our tent stood at the north-eastern corner of a tract that was full of hummocks; we could decide beyond a doubt that this was the dreaded trap.  We continued a little way to the east until we saw our course clearly, and then returned to camp.  We did not waste much time in getting things ready and leaving the place.  It was a genuine relief to find ourselves once more on good ground, and we resumed our journey southward at a brisk pace.

That we were not quite out of the dangerous zone was shown by a number of small hummocks to the south of us.  They extended across our course at right angles.  We could also see from some long but narrow crevasses we crossed that we must keep a good look-out.  When we came into the vicinity of the line of hummocks that lay in our course, we stopped and discussed our prospects.  “We shall save a lot of time by going straight on through here instead of going round,” said Hanssen.  I had to admit this; but, on the other hand, the risk was much greater.  “Oh, let’s try it,” he went on; “if we can’t do it, we can’t.”  I was weak, and allowed myself to be persuaded, and