climbing, both we and our dogs were pretty well winded. But we
were encouraged by hearing the barking of the free dogs up somewhere
among the cliffs. This meant that the bear had at last been brought to
bay. When we reached the shore our dogs were loosed from the sledges.
They swarmed up the hot trail, and we followed as best we could.

A little farther on we came to a deep canon, and as we could tell by the
sounds, the dogs and the bear were at the bottom. But where we stood the
walls were too precipitous for even an Eskimo to descend, and we could
not see our quarry. He was evidently under some projecting ledge on our
side.

Moving up the canon to find a place of descent, I heard Egingwah shout
that the bear had started down the canon and was climbing up the other
side. Hurrying back through the deep snow and over the rough rocks, I
suddenly saw the beast, perhaps a hundred yards away, and raised my
rifle. But I must have been too much winded to take good aim, for though
I fired two shots at him the bear kept right on up the canon side.
Surely Tornarsuk was in him!

I found that I had given the stumps of both my feet--my toes were frozen
off at Fort Conger in 1899--some severe blows against the rocks; and as
they were complaining with vehemence, I decided not to follow the bear
any farther along the steep boulder-strewn bluffs.

Handing my rifle to Egingwah, I told him and Koolatoonah to go after the
bear while I went back down the bluffs to the sledges and followed along
the bay ice. But before I had gone far along the bay ice shouting was
heard in the distance, and soon an Eskimo appeared on a summit and waved
his hand--a signal that they had bagged the bear.

Just ahead, and abreast of where the Eskimo had appeared, was the mouth
of a ravine, and I stopped the sledge there and waited. In a little
while my men appeared slowly working their way down the ravine. The dogs
which had been in at the death were attached to the bear, as if he had
been a sledge, and they were dragging him after them. It was an
interesting scene: the steep and rocky ravine in its torn mantle of
snow, the excited dogs straining ahead with their unusual burden, the
inert cream-colored, blood-streaked form of the great bear, and the
shouting and gesticulating Eskimos.

When they finally got the bear down to the shore, and while I was taking
photographs of him, the Eskimos walked up and down excitedly discussing
the now certain fact that th