same way several times before -- when suddenly I saw nothing but his
head, shoulders and arms above the snow. He had fallen through, but
saved himself by stretching his arms out as he fell. The crevasse
was bottomless, like the rest. We went into the tent and cooked
lobscouse. Leaving the weather to take care of itself, we made
ourselves as comfortable as we could. It was then one o'clock in
the afternoon. The wind had fallen considerably since we came in,
and before we knew what was happening, it was perfectly calm. It
began to brighten a little about three, and we went out to look at it.

The weather was evidently improving, and on the northern horizon
there was a sign of blue sky. On the south it was thick. Far off,
in the densest part of the mist, we could vaguely see the outline of
a dome-like elevation, and Wisting and Hanssen went off to examine
it. The dome turned out to be one of the small haycock formations that
we had seen before in this district. They struck at it with their
poles, and just as they expected -- it was hollow, and revealed the
darkest abyss. Hanssen was positively chuckling with delight when he
told us about it; Hassel sent him an envious glance.

By 4 p.m. it cleared, and a small reconnoitring party, composed of
three, started to find a way out of this. I was one of the three,
so we had a long Alpine rope between us; I don't like tumbling in,
if I can avoid it by such simple means. We set out to the east -- the
direction that had brought us out of the same broken ground before --
and we had not gone more than a few paces when we were quite out of
it. It was now clear enough to look about us. Our tent stood at the
north-eastern corner of a tract that was full of hummocks; we could
decide beyond a doubt that this was the dreaded trap. We continued
a little way to the east until we saw our course clearly, and then