496 Chapter VIII. 



made off over the ice, with three dogs after it. They 

 soon overtook it and pulled it down, so that when Mog- 

 stad came up he was obliged first of all to get the dogs 

 off before he could venture to shoot. It was a glorious 

 slaughter, and by no means unwelcome, for we had that 

 very day eaten the last remains of our last bear in the 

 shape of meat cakes for dinner. The two cubs made 

 lovely Christmas pork. 



" In all probability these were the same bears whose 

 tracks we had seen before. Sverdrup and I had followed 

 on the tracks of three such animals on the last day of 

 October, and had lost them to N.N.W. of the ship. 

 Apparently they had come from that quarter now. 



" When they wanted to shoot, Peter's gun, as usual, 

 would not go off; it had again been drenched with 

 vaseline, and he kept calling out : ' Shoot ! shoot ! Mine 

 won't go off.' Afterwards, on examining the gun I had 

 taken with me to the fray, I found there were no cart- 

 ridges in it. A nice account I should have given of 

 myself had I come on the bears alone with that weapon. 



" Monday, November 5th. As I was sitting at work 

 last night I heard a dog on the deck howling fearfully. I 

 sprang up and found it was one of the puppies, that had 

 touched an iron bolt with its toncrue and was frozen fast 



O 



to it. There the poor beast was, straining to get free, 

 with its tongue stretched out so far that it looked like a 

 thin rope proceeding out of its throat ; and it was howling 

 piteously. Bentzen, whose watch it was, had come up, 



