A SAD HOME-COMING. 239 



oiie bear are not long odds on the bear ! But neither was our quarry 

 slow to make off, and I had to let go my team before we could stop 

 him. After doing this, Fosheim and I had only four dogs to our 

 sledge, and consequently we began to fall behind the others, so I 

 jumped off, and let Fosheim drive on alone. The bear, poor thing } 

 knowing that it would soon be overtaken, hurried up from the ice 

 to some stones under a crag of rock, where the dogs caught it up 

 and began to bait it, and where Baumann soon shot it. I took 

 the carcase on my sledge, and we drove on to the ship, which we 

 reached at twelve o'clock eighteen miles in four hours, with a 

 bear-hunt thrown in, is not bad work. 



During our absence from the ship, several bears had been 

 killed. Simmons and Olsen, too, soon came back from shooting 

 out in the sound ; they had seen three bears, but could not do 

 anything, as they had no dogs. The day afterwards Baumann and 

 Schei saw a bear, followed it up, and shot it up on a hummock. 

 That was the whole of their bag. Next day they went out again, 

 but came home empty-handed. 



