At the same time we introduced a new order of things with our dogs.  Hitherto we had been obliged to keep them tied up on account of seal-hunting; otherwise they went off by themselves and ravaged.  There were certain individuals who specially distinguished themselves in this way, like Wisting’s Major.  He was a born hunter, afraid of nothing.  Then there was Hassel’s Svarten; but a good point about him was that he went off alone, while the Major always had a whole staff with him.  They usually came back with their faces all covered with blood.  To put a stop to this sport we had been obliged to keep them fast; but now that the seals had left us, we could let them loose.  Naturally the first use to which they put their liberty was fighting.  In the course of time —­ for reasons impossible to discover —­ bitter feelings and hatred had arisen between certain of the dogs, and now they were offered an opportunity of deciding which was the stronger, and they seized upon it with avidity.  But after a time their manners improved, and a regular fight became a rarity.  There were, of course, a few who could never see each other without flying at one another’s throats, like Lassesen and Hans, for instance; but we knew their ways, and could keep an eye on them.  The dogs soon knew their respective tents, and their places in them.  They were let loose as soon as we came out in the morning, and were chained up again in the evening when they were to be fed.  They got so used to this that we never had much trouble; they all reported themselves cheerfully when we came in the evening to fasten them up, and every animal knew his own master and tent, and knew at once what was expected of him.  With howls of delight the various dogs collected about their masters, and made for the tents in great jubilation.  We kept up this arrangement the whole time.  Their food consisted of seal’s flesh and blubber one day, and dried fish the next; as a rule, both disappeared without any objection, though they certainly preferred the seal.  Throughout the greater part of the winter we had carcasses of seals lying on the slope, and these were usually a centre of great interest.  The spot might be regarded as the market-place of Framheim, and it was not always a peaceful one.  The customers were many and the demand great, so that sometimes lively scenes took place.  Our own store of seal’s flesh was in the “meat-tent.”  About a hundred seals had been cut up and stacked there.  As already mentioned, we built a wall of snow, two yards high, round this tent, as a protection against the dogs.  Although they had as much to eat as they wanted, and although they knew they were not allowed to try to get in —­ or possibly this prohibition was just the incentive —­ they were always casting longing eyes in that direction, and the number of claw-marks in the wall spoke eloquently of what went on when we were not looking.  Snuppesen, in particular, could not keep herself away from that wall, and she was extremely light and agile, so that