On the night before April 11 something or other fell down in the kitchen —­ according to Lindstrom, a sure sign that the travellers might be expected home that day.  And, sure enough, at noon we caught sight of them up at the starting-place.  They came across at such a pace that the snow was scattered all round them, and in an hour’s time we had them back.  They had much to tell us.  In the first place, that everything had been duly taken to the depot in 80deg.S.  Then they surprised me with an account of a fearfully crevassed piece of surface that they had come upon, forty-six and a half miles from the station, where they had lost two dogs.  This was very strange; we had now traversed this stretch of surface four times without being particularly troubled with anything of this sort, and then, all of a sudden, when they thought the whole surface was as solid as a rock, they found themselves in danger of coming to grief altogether.  In thick weather they had gone too far to the west; then, instead of arriving at the ridge, as we had done before, they came down into the valley, and there found a surface so dangerous that they nearly had a catastrophe.  It was a precisely similar piece of surface to that already mentioned to the south of 81deg.  S., but full of small hummocks everywhere.  The ground was apparently solid enough, and this was just the most dangerous thing about it; but, as they were crossing it, large pieces of the surface fell away just in rear of them, disclosing bottomless crevasses, big enough to swallow up everything —­ men, dogs, and sledges.  With some difficulty they got out of this ugly place by steering to the east.  Now we knew of it, and we should certainly be very careful not to come that way again.  In spite of this, however, we afterwards had an even more serious encounter with this nasty trap.

One dog had also been left behind on the way; it had a wound on one of its feet, and could not be harnessed in the sledge.  It had been let loose a few miles to the north of the depot, doubtless with the idea that it would follow the sledges.  But the dog seemed to have taken another view of the matter, and was never seen again.  There were some who thought that the dog had probably returned to the depot, and was now passing its days in ease and luxury among the laboriously transported seals’ carcasses.  I must confess that this idea was not very attractive to me; there was, indeed, a possibility that such a thing had happened, and that the greater part of our seal meat might be missing when we wanted it.  But our fears proved groundless; Cook —­ that was the name of the dog; we had a Peary as well, of course —­ was gone for ever.

The improved outfit was in every way successful.  Praises of the new tent were heard on every hand, and Prestrud and Johansen were in the seventh heaven over their double sleeping-bag.  I fancy the others were very well satisfied with their single ones.