33^ FAR THE S2' NORTH 



him. Then ' Kaifas ' got a slap on the nose. Meanwhile 

 Johansen had struggled to his legs, and when I fired had 

 got his gun, which was sticking out of the kayak hole. 

 The onl)' harm done was that the bear had scraped some 

 grime off Johansen's right cheek, so that he has a white 

 stripe on it, and had given him a slight wound in one 

 hand ; ' Kaifas ' had also got a scratch on his nose. 



" Hardly had the bear fallen before we saw two more 

 peeping over a hummock a little way off — cubs, who 

 naturally wanted to see the result of the maternal chase. 

 They were two large cubs. I thought it was not worth 

 while to sacrifice a cartridge on them, but Johansen ex- 

 pressed his opinion that young bear's fiesh was much more 

 delicate in flavor than old. He would only shoot one, he 

 said, and started off. However, the cubs took to their 

 heels, although they came back a little while later, and we 

 could hear them at a long distance growling after their 

 mother. 



"Johansen sent one of them a ball, but the range was 

 tc>o long, and he only wounded it. With some terrific 

 growls it started off again, and Johansen after it; but he 

 gave up the chase soon, as he saw it promised to be a 

 long one. While we were cutting up the she-bear the 

 cubs came back on the other side of the lane, and the 

 whole time we were there we had them walking round 

 us. When we had fed the dogs well, and had eaten 

 some of the raw meat ourselves, and had furthermore 

 stowed away in the kayaks the meat we had cut off 



