192 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
twice, the first shot hitting the bear in the hind- 
quarter, the second in the foreshoulder, bringing 
him down. Before I had our things out of the 
igloo and loaded on the sledge, he came back, 
bringing in a hindquarter of bear-meat with him. 
We fed some to the dogs, though not too much, 
for if we let them overeat they would not work well. 
Some of it we took with us; we could not carry 
much, however. * 
At seven o'clock we finally got away but were 
soon held up by a lead of open water which in some 
places was half a mile wide. Looking from a high 
rafter we could see no chance to cross in either direc¬ 
tion, east or west, so we took up our march east¬ 
ward, the course of the lead gradually veering to 
the southeast. 
As we went along we saw several seal in the 
water. One of these we shot and recovered after 
some difficulty. The Eskimo captured the seal in 
the usual way and towed it to the edge of the ice, 
which at this point was about five feet above the 
surface of the water. As the seal came alongside, 
I reached down to haul it up. Braced against a 
hummock, Kataktovick held my feet to keep me 
from sliding down into the water and 1 caught 
hold of the seal by the flipper and held it. The 
seal was not quite dead and made some resistance. 
On account of my position I could get no pur- 
