158 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
mican, for they already had too heavy loads to 
bring them. 
They said that the day before, as the darkness 
was coming on, they had come to the conclusion 
that they would be unable to reach the big camp 
near the raftered ice before night, so they had 
decided to stop where they were and build an igloo, 
while there was still light enough to see. They 
were busily at work, cutting out snow-blocks and 
piling them up, when suddenly three bears came 
upon them, evidently the same ones whose tracks 
we had seen on our march. One of the bears got 
between them and the sledge which bore their rifles. 
They made noise enough, however, to frighten this 
bear and start all three running away; then they 
sprang for their rifles and shot the bears on the run. 
The next morning, therefore, I sent McKinlay, 
Hadley and Mamen back to bring up the bear meat. 
The rest of us sledged supplies along the shore¬ 
ward way, Kataktovick and I walking on ahead to 
blaze the trail. We had a continuation of the fine 
weather and low temperature. I suppose it was 
about forty or fifty below zero. We sledged a 
good part of the supplies along to the new camp on 
the big floe and built igloos there. The next day 
we continued the work, Kataktovick picking the 
trail. At first it was rough going but after a time 
it became a little better and we moved all our sup- 
