stefansson-wrangel-09-25-004-016

- 16 -

That night I slept in my sleeping-bag and the dog was
fastened to the sled just outside the door. About four A.M. I was awakened
by his barking, and that meant a bear. I tried to get out of my white
drilling sleeping-sack but the more I stuggled the harder I stuck. Finally,
when I got out to my gun I saw the bear and two small cubs disappearing over
a ridge. I swore, "No more sleeping-bags for me," and for about ten days I
slept on top of the bag, but no bears. Then one night it felt pretty cold
and there being no bears, I got into the sleeping-bag. Of Course, the same
thing happened, even to the hour of four A.M. I finally freed myself from
the bag in time to get one shot as the bear was disappearing over a ridge.
I then cut the dog loose to see if we could stop the bear. It had been snow-
ing and was pretty dark and both the dog and I had several hard falls in
the pursuit. The rough going did not seem to bother the bear and he got away.

The native had now been away twice as long as he said but
I decided to give him four or five more days. It was blowing hard from the
south, and I knew that when the wind dropped there would be open water beside
the ridge, with plenty of seals. But I was beginning to worry about the
native, so I set out on the fourteenth say. I got to the beach at seven A.M.
and found everybody asleep. It seemed the native had loaded up with wood as
he had said he would and had started for my camp when he got severely snow-
blind five or six miles from land and was unable to procees. After being
sick there for some time he had returned ashore.

Shortly after this McKinlay left for his camp at Rodgers
Harbor, where he was to stay according to the Captain's orders. He was gone
several days and came back with the news that Malloch had died and that
Mamen was sick and swelling up, which most of them were doing at out camp,
see, He said Mamen could not eat their [pemmican] and had asked him to go to