XIDERMY" AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY FLASHLIGHT]

The scene is vivid in memory: the towering mountains on both sides of
James Ross Bay, with the snow-covered foreshore stretching down to the
white surface of the bay; in the south the low-lying sun, a great glare
of vivid yellow just showing through the gap of the divide, the air full
of slowly dropping frost crystals; and the four fur-clad figures grouped
around the deer, with the dogs and the sledges at a little
distance--the only signs of life in that great white wilderness.

When the deer was skinned and dressed, the pelt was carefully rolled and
put on one of the sledges, the meat was made into a pile for
Wesharkoopsi to take back to the ship when he returned from Sail Harbor
with empty sledge, and we pushed along the western shore of the bay;
then, taking to the land again, still westward across this second
peninsula and low divide, till we came to the little bight, called Sail
Harbor by the English, on the western side of Parry Peninsula.

Here, out at the mouth of the harbor, under the lee of the protecting
northern point, we made our second camp.

Wesharkoopsi deposited his load of supplies, and I wrote a note for
Bartlett, who was west of us on his way to Cape Columbia. That night we
had deer steak for supper--a feast for a king.

After a few hours' sleep we started, straight as the crow flies, across
the eastern end of the great glacial fringe, heading for the mouth of
Clements Markham Inlet. Reaching the mouth of the inlet, we kept on down
its eastern shore, finding very good going; for the tides rising in the
crack next the shore had saturated the overlying snow, then freezing had
formed a narrow but smooth surface for the sledges.

A part of this shore was musk-ox country, and we scanned it carefully,
but saw none of the animals. Some miles down the bay we came upon the
tracks of a couple of deer. A little farther on we were electrified by
a tense whisper from the ever sharp-sighted Egingwah:

"_Nanooksoah!_"

He was pointing excitedly toward the center of the fiord, and following
the direction of his finger we saw a cream-colored spot leisurely moving
toward the mouth of the fiord--a polar bear!

If there is anything that starts the blood lust in an Eskimo's heart
more wildly than the sight of a polar bear, I have yet to discover it.
Hardened as I am to arctic hunting, I was thrilled myself.

[Illustration: POLAR BEAR, ARRANGED BY "FROZEN TAXIDERMY" AND