CHAPTER XLIX. 



THE RETURNING PARTY'S EXPERIENCES. 



BAUMANN related that the returning party met their first bear a 

 couple of evenings after they had parted from us, up in Norske- 

 bugten. It came stalking straight up to camp, just as they 

 were beginning to cook their supper. A couple of our fellows were 

 inside the tent, but most of them were still out, and so busy at 

 their work that they did not see ' Bamsen ' till he was close on it. 

 Nor did the dogs remark him they were gnawing fish. The bear 

 marched straight through a couple of the teams, hit out to right 

 and left, scattering the dogs in all directions, and set his course 

 straight on the camp. 



Stolz, who was a little way from it, trying to get some cooking 

 ice, suddenly saw ' the white 'un ' right in front of him, and ran 

 off to fetch his carbine. When he had dragged it out of its 

 cover, however, he found that the mechanism was so full of ice 

 that it would not act, so he shouted to the others that they must 

 shoot, and the intruder was eventually laid low by Baumann and 

 Schei. It was a fine, very fat bear, and came in well for the dogs. 



As long as the weather was calm the returning party followed 

 our tracks down the bay, but when they came to ' Trangsund ' 

 (Narrow Sound), as we called the narrowest part of Hell Gate, 

 the wind got up, and several times they had to take to road-making 

 before they could advance farther. A great quantity of the fast 

 ice had drifted away, so that progress for them was worse than it 

 had been for us, excepting inasmuch as they had next to nothing 

 on their sledges. 



They saw a great deal of open water in the western part oi 

 Jones Sound, especially near the western cape of Hvalrosfjord, 

 When they drove up to the place where we had left the walrus- 



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