288 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



suitable camping place and there await my arrival. In 

 some cases I signaled to them that the game in sight was 

 more convenient for them to kill than for me, whereupon 

 two of them would immediately set off in the direction I 

 indicated while the third made camp. 



On the day in question I had seen no trace of game. 

 I had been walking rapidly and must have been about five 

 or six miles ahead of my companions. The mountains 

 were running so near the coast at this place that my 

 course v/as less than a mile from the beach. Up to that 

 time we had on this journey depended for our living on 

 caribou and grizzly bears. But now there were no signs 

 of either, so I took up my position on a conspicuous hill 

 and decided to spend an hour or so in a careful study 

 of the sea ice through my field glasses in the hope of 

 discovering either a sleeping seal or possibly a polar 

 bear. 



I had been examining the ice for some time when I 

 noticed a spot which seemed to me more yellow than ice 

 ought to be. It was about a mile from the coast out 

 among the rough ice. I watched this for a long time 

 but saw no motion. That was not conclusive in itself 

 for a polar bear, especially after a full meal of seal meat, 

 is likely to sleep for hours and even for the larger part 

 of a day. Accordingly, I continued sitting and studying 

 the ice elsewhere as well as the mountains behind me, 

 occasionally turning my glasses to the yellow spot to see 

 if it were still there. I think I had done this three or 

 four times and my mind was just about made up to 

 proceed along the const and assume that the yellow spot 

 was nothing but ice, when on looking back I failed to 

 see it. It was a bear (hen and had started traveling or 

 else had gotten up, moved a little way and lain down 



