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The passage we crept through was equally narrow all the way, and forced one to crawl on hands and knees; fortunately, it was not long. It ended in a fairly large, square room. A low table stood in the middle of the floor, and on it Helmer Hanssen was engaged in lashing sledges. The room gave one the impression of being badly lighted, though it had a lamp and candles.
That must be Helmer Hanssen, who was on the Gjöa; he looks as if he could handle a rope. Ah, and there we have Olav Olavson Bjaaland! I could have cried aloud for joy my old friend from Holmenkollen. The great long-distance runner, you remember. And he managed the jump, too 50 metres, I think standing. If Amundsen has a few like him, he will get to the Pole all right.
Hanssen, who drove first, was bound to have a fairly serviceable whip; the others did not matter so much, though it was rather awkward for them. In some way or other he provided himself with a whip that answered his purpose. I saw one of the others armed with a tent-pole, and he used it till we reached Framheim.
My companion has just time to whisper to me, " Jump on; I'll wait here," when the sledge starts off at a terrific pace with me as a passenger, unsuspected by Hanssen. We went along so that the snow dashed over us. He had his dogs well in hand, this fellow, I could see that; but they were a wild lot of rascals he had to deal with.
We therefore decided upon a room sufficiently large to house all these articles, and at the same time to provide working-space for Wisting and Hanssen, who would have to lash all the sledges as fast as they came from Bjaaland. Wisting elected to build this room in a big snow-drift that had formed around the tent in which he had kept all his stuff; the spot lay to the north-east of the house.
Pertz, Professor Leopold Ranke, Professor Theodor Mommsen, Privy Councillor Professor Hanssen, all members of the Royal Academy of Science, and as specialists capable of judging in the matter, be constituted a subsidiary tribunal to pass on the question, whether the address in question is not in the strict sense a scientific production.
In the evening, when we took our things into the tent, the housewife, with scissors, pins, needles, etc., had lain close against the compass. No wonder it turned rebellious. On March 19 we had a breeze from the south-east and -45.4° F. "Rather fresh," I find noted in my diary. Not long after we had started that morning, Hanssen caught sight of our old tracks.
You can't have anything tougher and stronger than those." He was rather sore about it, that was easy to see; the idea was his own, too. Then talk of the devil in walked Hanssen, with a fine big whip in his hand. I, of course, appeared extremely surprised. "What," I said, "more whips?" "Yes," said he; "I don't believe in those I'm making in the daytime. But here's a whip that I can trust."
Here we should have plenty of room to fit up a vapour bath. Meanwhile the tunnellers were advancing; we could hear the sound of their pickaxes and spades coming nearer and nearer. This was too much for Hanssen. As he had now finished the hut, he set to work to dig his way to the others; and when he begins a thing, it does not take him very long.
It was arranged, then, that the handles were to be made by Stubberud, and passed on to Hanssen. The whip-lashes were made by Hassel, in the course of the winter, on the Eskimo model. They were round and heavy as they should be and dangerous to come near, when they were wielded by an experienced hand. Hanssen received these different parts to join them together and make the whip.