118 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



seemed feasible. But all this was in the dense fog. It 

 was a blind man's groping. When this sort of thing first 

 began it was uncanny, but by now we were quite accus- 

 tomed to it. Every one cordially cursed the weather. 



For an hour we tied up to a big, hilly floe which was 

 doubtless gromided. The mate found on it a beach 

 pebble as big as a pigeon's egg. For what fabulous tale 

 this was to be the basis I know not. lOeinschmidt took 

 motion pictures of us climbing the highest peak, perhaps 

 thirty feet above the water, and sHpping down again, 

 while Born made some repairs to the dynamo. This 

 important part of the engine, by the way, was frequently 

 in trouble all summer. 



Through many a twist and turn into the bights of the 

 ice-pack, we made a generally south by west direction, 

 which would bring us to the Siberian coast somewhat 

 west of Cape Vankarem if the trend of the pack kept this 

 course as it had done hitherto. In crossing some of 

 these large pieces of open water the ''Abler" rolled and 

 pitched a great deal during the night as she sped before 

 the heavy north wind. When morning came this shifted 

 to a few points west of north and lightened very much, 

 so that the pack sheltered us and gave smooth water. 

 It was clear and suimy much of the day, and someone of 

 us watched for game from the cabin house roof all the 

 time. Nothing appeared in the morning. Except by 

 unusual accident we did not expect to see bears among 

 the small ice cakes. One might of course be surprised in 

 the water as he made his way from one floe to another, 

 but as a rule we found they ranged over the larger fields. 

 These we examined carefully with our glasses. The 

 bears appeared to He up mostly in the hollows, beside a 

 seal blow-hole, waiting a chance for food. If they 



