was
not there when I had left. It was possible that it was only the snow
that had been piled up in heaps by us. "Strange," I said to myself,
"that I did not notice that this morning." I advanced cautiously, when
suddenly I discovered that what I thought so strange was three foxes,
white ones, seated and looking up intently at the reindeer meat,
probably thinking how they might reach it. I watched them while they
stood still and kept their heads up, looking at the meat. I was glad the
meat was out of their reach, otherwise we should have had no supper. I
stood perfectly still and kept watching them. The three foxes did not
move. Suddenly one turned round, and when he saw me he gave the alarm to
his companions and off they ran at a great rate, and soon were out of
sight.

When I came to the camp I saw that the foxes had gone round and round
the pole, in the hope of finding a way to reach the meat. It was lucky
that they had not intelligence enough to dig the snow with their paws at
the foot of the pole to make it come down.

After this, looking over the snow, I saw in the distance a little black
spot, which grew bigger and bigger as it came nearer. I recognized Jakob
on his skees.

Soon after he arrived in our camp I told him about the foxes. "They will
come again," he replied, "for they are hungry. Other foxes will also
come, for they will surely scent our meat."

After a while we began to work, and built two little round enclosures of
snow, the walls about three feet high, with openings here and there to
fire from, and went inside and waited for the foxes, having previously
put within a short shooting distance some reindeer meat. We waited for
quite a while--no foxes--when suddenly I thought I saw something moving
over the snow. Looking carefully I found that they were white foxes.
They had evidently scented the meat and were approaching in that
direction, and when within shooting distance we fired and two of them
fell. They were fine creatures, with soft long hair almost as white as
the snow upon which they walked. We skinned them at once, and stretched
their skins on frames we made from branches of juniper.

The next day we built two new snow entrenchments, in the opposite
direction to the others, and when it was dark we went into them, putting
reindeer meat near.

We had not to wait long. I saw something black on the snow. Certainly
the animal was not a white fox. It could not be the cub of a bear, for
it was