296 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



the Commander appeared, bringing his Mannlicher. Al- 

 though this rifle is of smaller caliber — .256 — one bullet in 

 the bear's heart killed him instantly as he clambered out 

 upon the ice. 



"In a sense, this misfortune to the bear was his own 

 fault. The smell of the burning seal blubber and cooking 

 seal-meat had attracted him from five miles away, as we 

 later learned by studying his trail. On cutting him up, 

 we saw he had not been hungry. Had he had the sense 

 to study us from a distance of a hundred yards or even 

 twenty-five yards, we should not have fired at him, for 

 we had plenty of seal meat. But we had seen him first 

 only a few feet away from our dogs and apparently hesi- 

 tating only momentarily before plunging in to swim the 

 narrow water lane that separated him from them. We 

 fired the first shot to protect our dogs, and the others 

 merely to put a wounded animal out of misery." 



The last bear story of this book will be told by Harold 

 Noice. Noice was born in Kansas City but brought up 

 in Seattle. He was a boy fresh out of high school when 

 he went to the Arctic Ocean on the whaling ship Polar 

 Bear. The summer of 191 5 we met the Polar Bear and 

 purchased her to take the place of a ship our expedition 

 had lost. Some of the crew of the Polar Bear stayed 

 with the ship and joined our expedition. One of these 

 was Noice. He accompanied us on two of our longest 

 sledge journeys. He enjoyed the Arctic so much that 

 when we sailed south in 19 18 he asked to be allowed to 

 remain behind, and spent four more years there studying 

 the Eskimos of Coronation Gulf — till the fall of 192 1. 

 The story he tells here happened the spring of 19 16 when 

 we had discovered Meighen Island and were on our way 



