HUNTING FOR WINTER FOOD. 345 



in the air, the tide being just now at its lowest. However, with 

 the help of a line, I managed to bring it into better position. By 

 about ten o'clock the bear had been treated according to all the 

 rules of the game, and the skin and meat brought up above high- 

 water mark. I then set off to look for the rest of my nocturnal 

 visitors ; but although I went a good way north, I found, neither 

 then, nor a couple of days later, any sign that they had come 

 ashore. 



' I then thought I had better look after my four-footed comrade, 

 " Susamel," who had taken most of the chain with her when she 

 ran away, and might now be hung up somewhere. The tracks 

 showed, however, that the dog, in its terror, had mistaken the way, 

 and had gone to sea some way north of the tent, and I therefore 

 lost the trail. I found it again after some search on the ice in 

 the bay, west of the point. A little later I found the tracks of 

 the bears, so that I was able to form some idea of what they had 

 been doing at the time immediately precediog my first acquaint- 

 ance with them. 



' They had come from Hvalrosfjord, and had evidently only 

 intended to go east of the little rounded cove in the mouth of the 

 bay. But on the north side of this they had found the track of 

 a fox, or perhaps the fox itself, which they had then followed in 

 a south-easterly direction straight across the point. There they 

 had come across a box of fossils which Schei had left on the 

 beach, a good way north of the tent. This they had examined 

 with great care, thrown out the fossils, broken a number of them 

 into bits, splintered the box, overturned it into the brash, and 

 finally danced a triumphal dance on the top of everything. 

 Tired by these exploits, they had then repaired straight to the 

 tent via the ice-foot. Here the old bear or one of the old 

 bears had at once taken "Susamel" in hand, and must have 

 completely surprised her the dog had evidently known nothing 

 before the bear was on her. The most remarkable thing, however, 

 was that most likely there had been two old bears ; for when I 

 fired off my second shot the first bear must already have been 

 dead, judging by the frozen condition of its paws when I found it. 

 Besides, I am certain that I heard an old one as well as the cubs 



