STORE AND LILLE BJOBNEKAP. 357 



sledge at the beginning of the fun, and, impatient at the want of 

 result of so much shooting, they joined the fray with it behind 

 them. At this moment I also came up. As usual I had not my 

 gun with me, but I had plenty to do in disentangling Hassel's 

 team. I marched into the middle of the pack, among all the 

 frantic animals, to loosen their lanyard, and found myself in a 

 hot corner. Happily Schei and Baumann arrived on the scene 

 after a few minutes there was a report, then a shot, then 

 another, and ' Bamsen ' sank down with sundry ounces of lead in 

 his body. 



Wild as were the dogs, I was no less so. I tried to point 

 the moral of the situation, impressing on Hassel that the art of 

 rifle-shooting consists solely in firing off your gun at the right 

 moment. His bear was an enormous fellow, and as fat as could 

 be. Peder and I set to work to skin it as quickly as we could, 

 flinging the meat to the dogs bit by bit. They swallowed the 

 pieces almost before they had got hold of them ; it was like 

 throwing meat into a bottomless sack. 



Whilst the feeding process was going on, two of the teams fell 

 to fighting, and when at last we had separated them, disentangled 

 their harness and traces, and administered the necessary thrashing, 

 both of Peder's hands were freezing hard. He became quite dazed, 

 and it would no doubt have been a serious affair had it not been 

 taken in time ; but by dint of strenuous rubbing, we succeeded in 

 reviving them and preventing further consequences. 



All the members of the expedition complained of the damp. 

 The bad weather we had experienced in the sound, combined with the 

 violent exertion it had cost us to get through it, had kept them 

 all, being out of condition, in a perpetual steam-bath. Added to 

 this, their clothes had been almost permeated by all the driving 

 snow we had had, so that they and their sleeping-bags 

 were entirely coated with ice ; in fact, they were going about 

 encased in it. In these circumstances I thought it only right to 

 let the assistant party return from our next camping-place, or two 

 days earlier than we had arranged. 



Next day, March 31, we were early astir. The four of us who 

 were going on had our things handed over by the returning party, 



