THE WIXTER NIGHT 325 



it was a matter of life and death. I seized one eun, 

 he another, and up we rushed, tlie mate with his gun 

 after us. There was not much difficulty in knowing 

 in what direction to turn, for from the rail on the 

 starboard side came confused shouts of human voices, 

 and from the ice below the gangway the sound of a 

 frightful uproar of dogs. I tore out the tow-plug at the 

 muzzle of my rifle, then up with the lever and in with a 

 cartridge; it was a case of hurry. But, hang it! there is 

 a plug in at this end too. I poked and poked, but could 

 not get a grip of it. Peter screamed : ' Shoot, shoot ! 

 Mine won't go off! He stood clicking and clicking, his 

 lock full of frozen vaseline again, while the bear lay chew^- 

 ing at a dog just below us at the ship's side. Beside me 

 stood the mate, groping after a tow-plug which he also 

 had shoved down into his 2:un, but now he fluno- the sfun 

 angrily aw^ay and began to look round the deck for a 

 walrus spear to stick the bear with. Our fourth man, 

 Mogstad, was waving an empty rifle (he had shot away 

 his cartridges), and shouting to some one to shoot the 

 bear. Four men, and not one that could shoot, although 

 we could have prodded the bear's back with our gun- 

 barrels. Hansen, making a fifth, was lying in the pas- 

 sage to the chart-room, groping with his arm through 

 a chink in the door for cartridges ; he could not get the 

 door open because of ' Kvik's ' kennel. At last Johan- 

 sen appeared and sent a ball straight down into the 

 bear's hide. That did some orood. The monster let so 



