With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied, one in particular being so graphically described by Sverdrup that as a sample we may be forgiven a rather long quotation. "The bear," says Sverdrup, "was determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little north of our tent, and, try as the dogs would to prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei and I ran full speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard that the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short cut across some hills of grit, and, when we reached the top of one of them, saw the bear on the other side of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost sheer away. But on the north side it was accessible, and here it was probably that the bear had climbed it. There sat the king of the icefields enthroned on a kind of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs standing at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots, but overrated the distance, and the bullets went over the bear's head. I then told Schei to go and shoot it whilst I looked on at the further development of the drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a mountain crag; this little ledge was reached by a bridge not more than a good yard in width, and there stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledgehammer to fell the first being that should venture across. His majesty was not visible to Schei until he came within a few feet of him, but then it was not long before a shot was heard. The bear sank together, and a few seconds afterwards all the dogs had thrown themselves on to it. They tugged and pulled at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it, and before we knew what they were doing, had dragged the body to the edge of the plateau, where it shot out over the precipice. The dogs stood amazed, gazing down into the depths where the bear was falling swiftly through the air—but not alone, for on it as large as life were two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair, that they now stood planted head to head, and bit themselves still faster to it in order to keep their balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected journey through the air. The next moment the bear in its perpendicular fall would reach the projecting point of rock, and my poor dogs!—it was a cruel revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now have only three dogs left in my team. The bear's body dashed violently against the rock, turned a somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still further, until, after falling a height of altogether at least a hundred feet, it reached the slopes by the river, and was shot by the impetus right across the river-ice and a good way up the other side. And the dogs? When the bear dashed against the mountain they sprang up like rubber balls, described a large curve, and with stiffened legs continued the journey on their own account, falling with a loud thud on to the hardly packed snow at the bottom of the valley.