The men knew that after April twenty-second the sun would not be seen in this land at the bottom of the earth for four months. They would not have time to reach the South Pole before that long night came. They must wait for another summer. During the long night the men lived comfortably in their house on the ice. They looked over every sledge, every piece of harness, their clothes, and their skis to make sure that everything was in shape for the trip over the ice to the South Pole. The sun appeared in the sky for only a few minutes on August twenty-fourth. Each day after that it crept a little higher and stayed a little longer until at last the long day came when the sun was in the sky for weeks and weeks without setting. For weeks after the sun appeared, the weather was bitter cold. The men watched for signs of warmer weather. Late in September they saw a seal crawl out of the water. They then knew that they soon would have warmer days, so they began to prepare for the journey to the pole. On October twentieth, Amundsen and four other men with four sledges and fifty-two dogs set out from Framheim. The sledges were loaded with provisions enough to last four months. As they journeyed south, they stopped at different places and built up piles of snow blocks. The heaps of snow would help them find their way back. Under the blocks of snow they put supplies which they would need as they came back. The dogs made good time over the ice of the Antarctic. They traveled about seventeen miles a day. The men on their skis easily kept up with the dogs. But by the middle of November they came to snow-covered mountains. Some of them are two miles high. Travel was then harder. The party traveled up about one mile. They then rested. Travel was easier for a few days as they had reached a high level stretch of land which we call a plateau (pla tō). They then began to climb mountains again. Early in December they were up two miles high. From that time on they traveled on another plateau. Travel was easy on this level stretch of land. The men knew that the South Pole was on this plateau. The end of their journey seemed near. On the night of December thirteenth, they had that strange feeling that something was going to happen. And at three o’clock the next day they were on the spot which they reckoned to be the South Pole. The happy men seized each other’s hands. How glad they were! They then did the most important act of the journey—they planted the flag of Norway on that spot. The hands of all five men held the flag as it was set into place. Amundsen would have it that way. He said later, “It was not for one man to do this; it was for all who staked their lives in the struggle, and held together through thick and thin.” As the men put the flag in place, they said, “Thus we plant thee, Beloved Flag, at the South Pole, and give the plateau on which it lies the name _King Haakon VII’s Plateau_.”