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among them, but that one was a fighter of the right sort. He had 

 taken up his position outside the square, and kept things going by 

 making small sallies after one of the dogs, while the other two 

 were keeping the square. The other square had no defender in 

 the outpost's line. 



The first animal I sighted for was of course the bull, which I 

 wished to kill as soon as possible. I had just shot two of the cows 

 in the same square when Schei came up after me. 



As soon as I had begun to shoot, the dogs from the other 

 square had come running across to mine, making all together 

 a great racket. I could not bring myself to shoot the whole 

 of this big herd of thirty animals, and with the exception of a 

 couple of sallies at first, none of them had attempted to make an 

 attack. Inside the square were mostly young animals, while the 

 cows which stood in the line of defence were almost all in calf, 

 and not much disposed to fight. We could not get hold of the 

 fallen animals, for they were lying inside the line ; nor could we 

 catch the dogs. They were yelping and giving tongue with all their 

 might close in. to the square, but without doing it much damage. 



We stood thus, glaring at one another for a time, but in the 

 end this was neither entertaining nor lucrative. We had better try 

 to get hold of our dogs, and see if the square would not then 

 disperse. At that time we had not seen much of what polar 

 cattle may choose to do to an attacker, but we felt pretty sure 

 that it would be risky to go close up to them. 



Something, however, had to be done, so we cautiously crawled 

 towards the animals. There stood the whole herd, forehead to 

 forehead and horns to horns, gazing at us with great, dark, won- 

 dering eyes. Not one stirred to attack, but they were ready for 

 defence, for as we gradually approached them the more distant 

 animals closed in and made front against us, without however 

 uncovering any point of the square. At some few yards from it 

 we succeeded in getting hold of the dogs, and then tied them up 

 at a distance. 



But the herd stood motionless as before. They had no 

 confidence in our friendly advances. We then walked a little 

 distance away, but kept careful watch on their movements. At 



