The cape passed, they opened into a bay of clear water extending far and wide. Along its shore was a wide, smooth ice-belt. Over this the dogs scampered with their sledge and men with wonderful fleetness, making sixty miles the first day! The land grew more and more sloping to the bay as they advanced until it opened from the sea into a plain between two elevated rocky ranges. Into this they entered, steering north, until they struck the entrance of a bay; but the rugged ice across their path forbid farther sledge-travel in that direction. So they picketed, securely, as they thought, the dogs, took each a back load of provisions, and went forward. Their trusty rifles were in hand, and their boat-hook and a few scientific instruments were carefully secured to their persons. Thus equipped, they had tramped about nine miles from the last camp when an exciting scene occurred. It was a bear fight, shaded this time with the tender and tragic. A mother-bear and her child came in sight. They were a loving couple, and had plainly been engaged in a frolic together. Their tracks were scattered profusely about, like those of school children at recess in a recent snow. There were also long furrows down the sloping side of an ice-hill, upon and around which the footprints were seen. Morton declared that they had been coasting down this slope on their haunches, and this opinion was supported by the fact that Dr. Kane did, at another time, see bears thus coasting! Five of the dogs had broken away from their cords and had overtaken their masters. So they were on hand for the fight. Mother and child fled with nimble feet, and the dogs followed in hot pursuit. The bear, being overtaken by her enemies, began a most skillful and heroic skirmishing. The cub could not keep up with its mother, so she turned back, put her head under its haunches and threw it some distance ahead, intimating to it to run, while she faced the dogs. But the little simpleton always stopped just where it alighted, and waited for mamma to give it another throw! To vary the mode of operation, she occasionally seized it by the nape of the neck and flung it out of harms way, and then snapped at the dogs with an earnestness that meant business. Sometimes the mother would run a little ahead and then turn, as if to coax the little one to run to her, watching at the same time the enemy. For a while the bear contrived to make good speed; but the little one became tired and she came to a halt. The men came up with their rifles and the fight became unequal, yet the mother's courage was unabated. She sat upon her haunches and took the cub between her hind legs, and fought the dogs with her paws. "Never," says Morton, "was animal more distressed; her roaring could have been heard a mile! She would stretch her neck and snap at the nearest dog with her shining teeth, whirling her paws like the arms of a windmill." Missing her intended victim, she sent after him a terrific growl of baffled rage.