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six we had would not go far. I thought, however, that 

 it might easily be accounted for, as the fjord-ice, to which 

 the bear prefers to keep, had taken its departure on the 

 day when we had nearly drifted out to sea with the 

 walruses, and I thought that, when the ice now formed 

 again, bears would appear once more. It was therefore a 

 relief when one morning (September 23d) I caught sight 

 of a bear in front of me, just as I came round the promon- 

 tory to look at the skin that we had in soak in the sea. 

 It was standing on the shore close by the skin. It had 

 not seen me, and I quickly drew back to let Johansen, 

 who was following with his gun, pass me, while I ran 

 back to fetch mine. When I returned, Johansen lay on 

 the same spot behind a stone, and had not fired. There 

 were two bears, one by the hut and one by the shore; 

 and Johansen could not get up to the one without being- 

 seen by the other. When I had gone after my gun the 

 bear had turned its steps towards the hut; but just as 

 it reached it Johansen suddenly saw two bear's paws 

 conie quickly over the edge of the w^all and hit out at 

 the first bear, and a head followed immediately after. 

 This fellow was busily gnawing at our roof hides, which 

 he had torn down and bent, so that we had to put them 

 into the sea too, to get them thawed. The first bear 

 had to retreat to the shore once more, where we after- 

 wards discovered it had drawn up our hide and had 

 been scraping the fat off it. Under cover of some hum- 

 mocks we now ran towards it. It noticed us, and set off 



