permitted to answer that
question," said the man who had brought them in, gravely. "If we have
detained you without just cause, we are very sorry for it." And that was
all he would say.

"It's mighty queer, to say the least," observed Roger, after they had
taken their departure. "Dave, what do you make of it?"

"I think they took us to be some foreigners who had come to Norway for
no good purpose. You must remember that throughout Europe they have
great trouble with anarchists and with political criminals who plot all
sorts of things against the various governments. Maybe they took us to
be fellows who had come here to blow somebody up."

"They ought to know better than that. I don't think we look like
anarchists."

"Since that uprising in Russia, and the attempt on the king in Italy,
every nation over here looks with suspicion on all foreigners. But there
is something else to it, I imagine," went on Dave, seriously. "Those
fellows acted as if they didn't think much of this expedition which my
father has joined. Maybe that is under suspicion, too."

"Yes, I noticed that--and if it is true, your father may have some
trouble before he leaves Norway."

"I wish I could get to him at once. I could warn him."

From an Englishman on the steamer the boys had learned of a good hotel
where English was spoken, and there they obtained a good room for the
night. Before going to bed Dave mailed several postals to Jessie, and
also a letter to his Uncle Dunston and another to Phil Lawrence, for the
benefit of the boys at Oak Hall.

It was not difficult in Christiania to find out when the
Lapham-Hausermann Expedition had left the capital, or what had been its
first stopping-place. It had taken a railroad train to Pansfar and then
gone northward to the mountain town of Blanfos--so called because of the
waterfall in that vicinity--a waterfall being a _fos_ in the native
tongue.

"I don't see anything to do but to journey to Blanfos," said Dave. "I
presume it will be a mighty cold trip, and you needn't go if you don't
wish to, Roger."

"Didn't I say I'd go anywhere you went--even if it's to the North Pole?"
was the answer. "Come on,--I'm ready to start any time you are."

"I don't think we'll get to the North Pole, but we may get to the North
Cape. But we can't start until we've got those fur overcoats we talked
about."

At several of the shops in Christiania they procured all the additional
clothing they thought they neede