We got out our sextant and found that one of our position lines cut through the latitude of Spitzbergen. While we were waiting to take our second observation for an intersection, three hours later, some one yelled, “A sail!”--and there, heading out to sea, was a little sealer. We shouted after them and put up our flag, but they did not see us, and so we jumped into our plane and with what fuel we had left taxied out to them. They were after a wounded walrus that they had shot seven times in the head, otherwise they would have been gone long before. They were overjoyed to see us. We tried to tow the plane, but there was too much headwind, so we beached her in Brandy Bay, North Cape, North-East-Land, Spitzbergen, one hundred miles east of our starting point at King’s Bay. We slept continuously during the three days in the sealer, only waking to devour the delicious seal meat steaks smothered in onions and the eider-duck egg omelets prepared for us. The homage that was accorded us upon our return to civilization will ever remain the most cherished memory of our trip. We took steamer from King’s Bay for Norway on June 25th, after putting our plane on board, and nine days later arrived at Horten, the Norwegian Naval Base, not far from Oslo. On July 5th, with the stage all set, we flew N 25 into Oslo. It was difficult to realize that we were in the same plane that had so recently been battling in the midst of the Arctic ice. Good old N 25! We dropped down into the Fjord amid a pandemonium of frantically shrieking river craft and taxied on through the wildly waving and cheering throngs, past thirteen fully manned British battleships, and as I listened to the booming of the salute from the Fort and looked ahead at the great silent expectant mass of humanity that waited to greet us, I was overcome with emotion and the tears rolled down my face. At that moment I felt paid in full for all that I had gone through. PART III THE NAVIGATOR’S TASK BY LIEUT. HJALMAR RIISER-LARSEN THE NAVIGATOR’S TASK “The Air Club has fixed up contracts with the publishers of several countries for a book of at least seventy thousand words. Therefore you must write several thousand. Come and stay with me so that you can work in peace.” Such were Amundsen’s orders immediately we stepped ashore in Oslo. The manuscript of the entire 70,000 words should be delivered by the 10th of August. In view of the big task of arranging charts and pictorial matter, there would not be much time to spare, so we had to get down to it as quickly as possible.