"Friday, December 22d. A bear was shot last night. Jacobsen saw it first, during his watch. He shot at it. It made off; and he then went down and told about it in the cabin. Mogstad and Peter came on deck; Sverdrup was called, too, and came up a little later. They saw the bear on his way towards the ship again; but he suddenly caught sight of the gallows with the trap on the ice to the west, and went off there. He looked well at the apparatus, then raised himself cautiously on his hind-legs, and laid his right paw on the cross-beam just beside the trap, stared for a little, hesitating, at the delicious morsel, but did not at all like the ugly jaws round it. Sverdrup was by this time out at the deck-house, watching in the sparkling moonshine. His heart was jumping--he expected every moment to hear the snap of his trap. But the bear shook his head suspiciously, lowered himself cautiously on to all-fours again, and sniffed carefully at the wire that the trap was fastened by, following it along to where it was made fast to a great block of ice. He went round this, and saw how cleverly it was all arranged, then slowly followed the wire back, raised himself up as before, with his paw on the beam of the gallows, had a long look at the trap, and shook his head again, probably saying to himself, 'These wily fellows have planned this very cleverly for me.' Now he resumed his march to the ship. When he was within 60 paces of the bow Peter fired. The bear fell, but jumped up and again made off. Jacobsen, Sverdrup, and Mogstad all fired now, and he fell among some hummocks. He was flayed at once, and in the skin there was only the hole of one ball, which had gone through him from behind the shoulder-blade. Peter, Jacobsen, and Mogstad all claimed this ball. Sverdrup gave up his claim, as he had stood so far astern. Mogstad, seeing the bear fall directly after his shot, called out, 'I gave him that one'; Jacobsen swears that it was he that hit; and Bentzen, who was standing looking on, is prepared to take his oath anywhere that it was Peter's ball that did the deed. The dispute upon this weighty point remained unsettled during the whole course of the expedition. "Beautiful moonlight. Pressure in several directions. To-day we carried our supply of gun-cotton and cannon and rifle powder on deck. It is safer there than in the hold. In case of fire or other accident, an explosion in the hold might blow the ship's sides out and send us to the bottom before we had time to turn round. Some we put on the forecastle, some on the bridge. From these places it would be quickly thrown on to the ice.