the open country?" He replied: "We shall reach
the river soon."

The snow was not more than three or four or five inches deep at first,
but grew gradually deeper as we moved further south. Along the coast of
Finmarken the heat of the Gulf Stream prevents it from lying deep on the
ground.

That afternoon we reached the Tana river, at a place called Polmak, and
sped on over its snow-covered ice.

Seven or eight miles was all that our reindeer could do in an hour, and
during the day we had to stop several times to give them rest.

About eleven o'clock we stopped for the night. We spread our bags upon
the snow, but we got into one only, for two would have been too warm at
this time of the year; and as Mikel and I were ready to disappear in
them, I said "Good-night, Mikel," and he replied "Good-night, Paulus."

It snowed during the night, and when we awoke in the morning our bags
were covered with it. I did not wonder when I saw this that I had felt
so warm during the night.

I was the first to be up. I shook Mikel's bag and shouted to him, "Get
up, Mikel," and as his head peeped out of his bag, I said
"Good-morning," and he cried "Good-morning, Paulus." Then we took our
breakfast. The reindeer, while we were asleep, had dug through the snow
to the lichen and fed, and now were quietly resting.

We were soon on the way. As the sun rose higher and higher and its rays
grew more powerful, the snow became soft, and the travelling so hard for
our reindeer that we had to stop; the thermometer marked 44 degrees in
the shade and 80 degrees in the sun. There were sometimes twenty or
thirty degrees' difference of temperature during the twenty-four hours,
but the change came so slowly, hour after hour, that I did not notice
it.

So we had to stop travelling, and while the reindeer rested we took to
our skees and went in search of game, but no foxes or wolves were to be
seen. Towards four o'clock in the afternoon the snow began to freeze
again, and we again took up our journey. Now the nights have to be
turned into days, for we can only travel during the time when the sun is
not shining or has not great power.

We travelled without interruption the following day, as the sky was
cloudy and the snow was hard. Towards midnight Mikel said: "Our reindeer
are tired, we must rest; but we will not sleep more than three or four
hours, for we must reach a station where we can procure fresh reindeer."

We unharnessed our reindeer, and