At 1 P.M. we went on board for soup. The ice was then calm. The “Sphinx” lay in the same position. Oh! how good the thick pemmican soup tasted! Five hours’ hard work on a cup of chocolate and three small oatcakes gives one a good appetite. At 4 P.M. Dietrichson went on board to fetch something, and on his return remarked that it seemed to him that the old ice was approaching the seaplane. Now, he, during the last days, had suffered a little from snow blindness and we thought accordingly he had made a mistake. It was indeed a mistake. We should have gone at once and looked into the matter. One must however remember that every second is precious and that we grudged stopping work. At 7 P.M. we went on board to eat our three biscuits. The sight which then met us would have filled the bravest heart with despair. The great pack had approached the seaplane to within some meters. The “Sphinx” seemed to bow and chuckle with amusement. Now it would have us! But it had laughed too soon. The six men that it now looked upon were not the same six who some days ago had arrived through the air from a place full of life’s comforts; the six now were hardened by obstacles, weariness and hunger, and they feared nothing on earth, not even the “Sphinx.” “Hurrah! heroes. Hurrah for home and all we hold dear. The devil take the ‘Sphinx.’” And so the work began and in its performance we got more self-confident than ever before, as we managed to turn the heavy machine round in the course of a few minutes. What task each person specially performed it is difficult to say, but it was a Herculean task. We lay down, we pulled, we toiled, we scratched. “You shall go round!” Before we realized it there it was, turned 180° and the course set for the new slide. The “Sphinx” hung its head and looked sad; but the next day it lay exactly on the spot where N 25 had lain. During this performance N 24 was pushed on to the plain beside which it had lain. Still a little more leveling and the slide was ready. To shouts of joy the machine, in the evening at eleven o’clock, was driven over the track and stopped exactly beside the Thermopylæ Pass. To-morrow there would not be much to be done. The 7th of June. Norway’s Day! At home they would be wearing light summer clothes and enjoying life, while flags flew over the whole land from the North Cape to Neset. But don’t think that we forgot this day. No! From the N 25’s highest point our silk flag flew and our thoughts--oh! don’t let us think at all of them!