Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/210

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upstander, and with its aid to recover his seat. The tangled ice greatly retarded the impatient dogs, bringing them several times almost to a stand; but their eagerness and their drivers' energy finally triumphed over all obstacles, and they emerged at length, after much serious embarrassment, upon a broad and almost level plain, where for the first time the game came in view.

The delay of the sledges in the hummocks had allowed the bears to get the start of fully a mile, and it appeared probable that they would reach the water before they could be overtaken. The dogs seemed to be conscious of this danger, as well as the hunters, and they laid themselves down to the chase with all the wild instinct of their nature. Maddened by the detention and the prospect of the prey escaping them, the blood-thirsty pack swept across the plain like a whirlwind. Jensen and Hans encouraged their respective teams by all the arts known to the native hunter. The sledges fairly flew over the hard snow and bounced over the drifts and the occasional pieces of ice which projected above the otherwise generally smooth surface.

It was a wild chase. The dogs manifested in their speed and cry all the impatience of a pack of hounds in view of the fox, with ten times their savageness. As they neared the game they seemed to Sonntag like so many wolves closing upon a wounded buffalo.

In less than a quarter of an hour the distance between pursuers and pursued was lessened to a few hundred yards, and then they were not far from the water,—which to the one was safety, to the other defeat. During all this time the old bear was kept back by the young one, which she was evidently unwilling