VII A MOVE TO THE WEST AND BERING SEA 129 



retired officer of the French army, who was then manager of 

 a coal mine in Herendeen Bay, and he afterwards entertained 

 me most hospitably at his house on shore. 



As soon as Mr. Barstow heard my plans of pushing along 

 the coast with our bidarki and the dory, he at once dismissed 

 the idea, by insisting on my bringing all our belongings, 

 together with Schultze and the two natives, on board the 

 Volunteer, and announced his intention of taking us any- 

 where south of the North Pole that we wanted to go. He 

 would take no refusal, and as I did not require much pressing, 

 we went aboard the yacht next day. That morning I sent 

 the two natives out to get a caribou for meat in our first 

 camp, and they returned with a fine beast in the evening. 

 I saw great numbers of caribou along the mountain sides of 

 some of the valleys, and although most of them are hidden 

 away at this period of the year, it only required a short walk 

 over certain parts of the ground, where their shed antlers 

 could be seen in profusion, to understand that later in the 

 fall the caribou are found in some of these valleys in herds of 

 several thousand at a time. Whilst the natives were gone 

 after caribou, I decided to prospect on shore in a likely- 

 looking valley for a bear. After rowing ashore, I had not 

 gone 500 yards from the boat before I saw a bear eating 

 grass about 1000 yards away, on the side of a hill which 

 sloped down towards the sea. To get there I had to cross a 

 valley and travel to the next ridge. I crossed the valley at 

 a run, losing sight of the bear as I went over the low ground. 

 Reaching a spot whence I could see the place where he had 

 been, I found that the brute had disappeared. All around 

 me the alders were growing in small thick patches, and I 

 stalked up wind, searching every clump of bushes, but without 

 success. I then crossed over the ridge and worked the 



