Note 4 — Chapter III

Even still more arduous was the return journey that same winter. The people in the last house on the eastern side of the mountain, in bidding him “God speed,” entreat him to go cautiously, for the road over the fjeld is well nigh impassable in winter, they say. Not a man in the whole district would follow him, they add. Nansen promises them to be very careful, as he sets off in the moonlight at three o’clock in the morning. Soon he reaches the wild desert, and the glittering snow blushes like a golden sea in the beams of the rising sun. Presently he reaches Myrstölen.4 The houseman is away from home, and the women-folk moan and weep on learning the road he means to take. On resuming his journey he shortly comes to a cross-road. Shall it be Aurland or Vosse skavlen?5 He chooses the latter route across the snow plateau, for it is the path the wild reindeer follow. On he skims over the crisp surface enveloped in the cloud of snow-dust his ski stir up, for the wind is behind him. But now he loses his way, falls down among the clefts and fissures, toils along step by step, and at last has to turn back and retrace his steps. There ought to be a sæter6 somewhere about there, but it seems as if it had been spirited away. A pitchy darkness sets in; for the stars have disappeared one by one, and the night is of a coal-black hue, and Fridtjof has to make his bed on the snow-covered plateau, under the protecting shelter of a bowlder, his faithful dog by his side, his knapsack for a pillow, while the night wind howls over the waste.