.iiarcii, ]8(i3.i TrttcMng the Bear. 157 



On tlio 20th, Nu-her-zlioo left the village lor ji third visit to tlie 

 whalers, bearing- letters to Captains Chapel niid Tyson, with others to 

 be forwarded to Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Brevoort. Two days afterward, 

 a conple of Nu-ker-^hoo' s dogs ran back to the village in fnll luirness, 

 their trace-lines appearing to have been cut, as is usual on sighting a 

 ni-noo. At such a time the dogs are put in full chase, and when within 

 a hundred fathoms or so of this game, the driver cuts the trace-line of 

 the leader, and then in a few moments the trace of the next dog, and 

 so on, until all are free from the sledge. The dogs, as their lines are 

 cut, bound away for ni-noo, and soon bring him to bay, when the 

 hunter prepares himself as best he can for his encounter with the 

 ferocious beast. 



In company with Ebierbing, a few days afterward. Hall himself 

 came upon the tracks of a mother bear and cub about half a mile from 

 the coast, and followed them until they were lost in a belt of freshly- 

 broken ice. He notes that the custom of the Innuits on first sighting 

 the tracks of the bear, the musk-ox, or the reindeer, is to feel them, 

 closely placing the fingers here and there on the raised, or, rather, less 

 impressed parts of the snow. In this way the hunter determines liow 

 long they have been made, and if they are fresh, he goes in for a 

 vigorous chase. Hall and Ebierbing on their chase could readily 

 discriminate between the leisurely-made steps of the mother and her 

 young, the halt which she made to nurse her cub, and her irregular 

 shuffling gallop when, on scenting a seal, she must have changed her 

 sluggish gait to the quick trot of a polar under full headwa}^ 



During the rest of the month the temperature continued to mod- 

 erate. On the 27th, with a reading of 32°.5, fur-dresses became 

 uncomfortable; the fall of snow did not exceed five inches, and the 

 walrus and seal were found to be more plentiful in open water. While 



