Preparatory to quitting their sledge, the men had loaded themselves with eight pounds of pemmican and two of biscuit, besides the artificial horizon, sextant, and compass, a rifle, and a boathook. They had not been an hour gone when, as above stated, four of the dogs overtook them. An hour afterwards they came upon a polar bear with her cub. The fight that followed, although somewhat foreign to our subject, is so graphically described by Dr Kane, that we think it quite unnecessary to apologise for inserting it here. "The bear instantly took to flight; but the little one being unable to keep pace with her, she turned back, and, putting her head under its haunches, threw it some distance. The cub safe for the moment, she would then wheel round and face the dogs, so as to give it a chance to run away; but it always stopped, just as it alighted, till she came up and threw it ahead again; it seemed to expect her aid, and would not go on without it. Sometimes the mother would run a few yards ahead, as if to coax the young one up to her, and when the dogs came up she would turn and drive them back then, as they dodged her blows, she would rejoin the cub and push on, sometimes putting her head under it, sometimes catching it in her mouth by the nape of the neck. "For a time she managed her retreat with great celerity, leaving the two men far in the rear. They had engaged her on the land-ice; but she led the dogs in-shore, up a small stony valley which opened into the interior. After she had gone a mile and a half, her pace slackened, and, the little one being jaded, she soon came to a halt. "The men were then only half a mile behind, and running at full speed. They soon came up to where the dogs were holding her at bay. The fight was now a desperate one. The mother never went more than two yards ahead, constantly looking at the cub. When the dogs came near her, she would sit upon her haunches, and take the little one between her hind-legs, fighting the dogs with her paws, and roaring so that she could have been heard a mile off. Never was an animal more distressed. She would stretch her neck and snap at the nearest dog with her shining teeth, whirling her paws like the arms of a windmill. If she missed her aim, not daring to pursue one dog lest the others should harm the cub, she would give a great roar of baffled rage, and go on pawing and snapping, and facing the ring, grinning at them with her mouth stretched wide. "When the men came up the little one was perhaps rested, for it was able to turn round with its dam, no matter how quick she moved, so as to keep always in front of her belly. The five dogs were all the time frisking about her actively, tormenting her like so many gad-flies. Indeed they made it difficult to take an aim at her without killing them. But Hans, lying on his elbow, took a quiet aim, and shot her through the head. She dropped and rolled over dead, without moving a muscle.