nd me. I held my gun ready, while I crawled on
all-fours over the pack-ice, which was anything but level. I kept
a steady lookout ahead, but it was not far my eyes could pierce in
that darkness. I could only just see the dogs, like black shadows,
when they were a few steps away from me. I expected every moment
to see a huge form rise among the hummocks ahead, or come rushing
towards me. The dogs got more and more cautious; one or two of them
sat down, but they probably felt that it would be a shame to let me
go on alone, so followed slowly after. Terrible ice to force one's
way over. Crawling along on hands and knees does not put one in a
very convenient position to shoot from if the bear should make a
sudden rush. But unless he did this, or attacked the dogs, I had no
hope of getting him. We now came out on some flat ice. It was only
too evident that there must be something quite near now. I went on,
and presently saw a dark object on the ice in front of me. It was not
unlike an animal. I bent down--it was poor 'Johansen's Friend,' the
black dog with the white tip to his tail, in a sad state, and frozen
stiff. Beside him was something else dark. I bent down again and
found the second of the missing dogs, brother of the corpse-watcher
'Suggen.' This one was almost whole, only eaten a little about the
head, and it was not frozen quite stiff. There seemed to be blood all
round on the ice. I looked about in every direction, but there was
nothing more to be seen. The dogs stood at a respectful distance,
staring and sniffing in the direction of their dead comrades. Some
of us went, not long after this, to fetch the dogs' carcasses,
taking a lantern to look for bear tracks, in case there had been
some big fellows along with the little one. We scrambled on among
the pack-ice. 'Come this way with the lantern, Bentzen; I think
I see tracks here.' Bentzen came, and we turned the light on some
indentations in the snow; they were bear-paw marks, sure enough, but
only the same little fellow's. 'Look! the brute has been dragging
a dog after him here.' By the light of the lantern we traced the
blood-marked path on among the hummocks. We found the dead dogs, but
no footprints except small ones, which we all thought must be those of
our little bear. 'Svarten,' alias 'Johansen's Friend,' looked bad in
the lantern-light. Flesh and skin and entrails were gone; there was
nothing to be seen but a bare breast and back-bone, with some stumps
o