WE MEET THE ICE 
17 
ship to keep between him and the ice and as polar 
bears* though they are good swimmers., do not often 
dive, I knew that with ordinary luck we should get 
him. Shouting to the mate to keep an eye on him I 
ran down the rope-ladder from the barrel and 
rushed forward to the forecastle-head with a Win¬ 
chester in my hand. Some of the other members of 
the expedition* too, hearing the word bear, grabbed 
their rifles and blazed away at him. Every one was 
pretty much excited and for a few moments the bear 
seemed possessed of a charmed life. At last my 
second shot hit him in the back and my third in the 
head. This finished him; he keeled over and 
floated. We lowered a boat, towed the bear to the 
side and hoisted him on board; then the Eskimo 
skinned him. He was old and, as he had on his 
summer coat, his hair was sparse and yellow and 
of no great value. The Eskimo cut up the meat 
for dog food; we should have used it ourselves if 
we had not just obtained a large supply of fresh 
meat at Nome and Port Clarence. 
The skin of this old bear had something of a his¬ 
tory. The Eskimo stretched it on a frame and 
hung it up in the rigging for the wind and sun to 
cure it. I had a pair of trousers made from the 
softest part of the skin, which later I gave to Mai- 
loch. From the remainder I had a sleeping-robe 
made which I used on the ice from the time the 
