A TRAGEDY OF THE FAR NORTH 



mit he threw himself down the precipitous slope. He 

 rolled, fell, slipped, caromed, straight toward the big white 

 beast. An ice-bear, mind you, is the antithesis of a good 

 many men. At a distance from danger he is an arrant 

 coward; in close quarters, when cornered, or hungry, or 

 desperate, he fights like a Bengal tiger. Paul knew all 

 this. There was nothing about the tribe he did not know. 

 He had no weapon but an oaken ski-stav, a mere cane. 

 But he made straight for this bear, just the same. Down 

 the hillock-slope he came, bumping and leaping, and yell- 

 ing at the top of his voice. His cries, the commotion 

 which he raised, the vision the bear saw of a man flying 

 down at him, frightened the beast half out of his wits; 

 diverted his attention from the imperiled hunter to the bold 

 pursuer. 



This was what Bjoervig was working for. The bear dug 

 his mighty claws into the ice and stopped and looked at 

 Paul; but Paul couldn't stop. The slope was too steep, 

 his momentum too great. Now he was thirty feet from 

 the white fellow, now twenty. He dug his hands into the 

 crust of the snow; he tried to thrust his ski-stav deep into 

 the surface. It was in vain. Now he was almost upon 

 the bear; the beast crouched to spring at him. Another 

 second, and it would all be over. Crack! The rifle speaks; 

 the man down below has had time to recover his equili- 

 brium; the bear tumbles over, growling fiercely. Another 

 shot, and the brute is done for. Paul and the bear roll 

 down together. 



" You saved my life," says the man with the gun, when 

 Bjoervig has picked himself up. 



" No, no," responds Paul, whipping the snow out of his 

 hair, " you saved mine." 



Of course I took Bjoervig with me when I sailed on the 

 second Wellman Expedition in 1898. This was a more 

 serious undertaking. It involved wintering in the far 

 north, and a sledge journey at the height of the cold 

 season. Leaving Tromso, Norway, late in June, in the 

 Arctic steamer Frithjof, we took our Siberian dogs aboard 

 at Archangel, Russia, and then forced our way through the 

 drift ice to Franz Josef Land. After vain efforts to get 

 farther north with our ship, we established headquarters at 



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