Often, when it seemed as if I were never coming back, did Johansen think I had fallen through some lane and was gone for good. As one sits there on the kayak, waiting and waiting, and gazing in front of one into solitude, many strange thoughts pass through one's brain. Several times he climbed the highest hummock near at hand to scan the ice anxiously; and then, when at last he discovered a little black speck moving about on the white flat surface far, far away, his mind would be relieved. As Johansen was waiting in this way yesterday, he remarked that the sides of the floe in front of him were slowly moving up and down, [29] as they might if rocked by a slight swell. Can open water be near? Can it be that the great breakers from the sea have penetrated in here? How willingly would we believe it! But perhaps it was only the wind which set the thin ice we are now travelling over in wave-like motion. Or have we really open water to the southeast? It is remarkable that this wind welds the ice together, while the southwest wind here a little while ago slackened it. When all is said, is it possible that we are not far from the sea? I cannot help thinking of the water-reflections we have seen on the sky before us. Johansen has just left the tent, and says that he can see the same reflection in the south; it is higher now, and the weather tolerably clear. What can it be? Only let us go on and get there. "We came across the track of a bear again yesterday. How old it was could not easily be determined in this snow, which obliterates everything in a few minutes; but it was probably from yesterday, for 'Haren' directly afterwards got scent of something and started off against the wind, so that Johansen thought the bear must be somewhere near. Well, well, old or new, a bear was there while we were a little farther north, stitching at the kayaks, and one day it will come our way, too, no doubt! The gull which Johansen shot brought up a large piece of blubber when it fell, and this tends to confirm us in the belief that bears are at hand, as it hardly could have done so had it not been in such company. "The weather was wet and wretched, and, to make things worse, there was a thick mist, and the going was as heavy as could be. To go on did not seem very attractive; but, on the other hand, a halt for dinner in this slush was still less so. We therefore continued a little while longer and stopped at 10 o'clock for good. What a welcome change it was to be under the tent again! And the 'fiskegratin' was delicious. It gives one such a sense of satisfaction to feel that, in spite of everything, one is making a little way. The temperature is beginning to be bad now; the snow is quite wet, and some water has entered my kayak, which I suppose melted on the deck and ran down through the open side where the lacing is, which we have not yet sewn fast. We are waiting for good weather in order to get the covers thoroughly dry first, and then stretch them well.