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decided to send me with two sleds back to Shipwreck Camp to rush
some grub over the ridge onto the landfast ice and we could return
from the beach and get it at any time.

We started next morning and arrived at Shipwreck
Camp at 6 P.M. I should judge it was about forty miles. Next
day we loaded the sleds. It took us three days to cover on the
return journey what we had made in one day coming out.

On the second day about three P.M. I was behind
the team when my dogs stopped, turned in their tracks, and com-
menced growling, their hair standing up stiff. I looked behind
me and there was a bear about six feet from the sled. If the dogs
hadn’t smelt him I should never have known what hit me. They
made a break for him and he backed off a few feet, giving me a
chance to get my gun and give it to him in the head. We found
him about as large as meat bears ever get, ten feet from tip of nose to tip of tail with three inches of fat under
his skin. We made camp, for it was getting dusk.

While I was tinkering at the camp and the other
boys were cooking the dogs commenced a racket. I looked up and
there was a big bear alongside the sled between me and it, sitting
on his haunches and making passes at the dogs. I ran around the
sled and got my rifle, which was about four feet from the bear.
We were not needing any bear meat, so I tried to frighten him off,
but he was too scared of the dogs to pay any attention to me. I
did not want him to kill any of the dogs, and finally had to shoot
him. As I shot I heard another growling match and another bear
piled over a small ridge that was about ten feet from the sled.
He had blood in his eye and went for the dogs as if bent on murder.
I had to kill him, which closed a pretty good day.

About noon the next day as we were drawing near the