Sonntag has given me a lively description of the chase. The bears were started from the margin of a ridge of hummocked ice where they had been sleeping; and they made at once for the open cracks outside, distant about four miles. As soon as the dogs discovered the trail, they dashed off upon it into the hummocks, without waiting to be directed by their drivers, and utterly regardless of the safety of the sledges or of the persons seated upon them. The hummocks were very high, and the passages between them rough and tortuous. Had the bears kept to them they might have baffled pursuit; for the progress of the sledges was much interrupted, and the track could not always be followed. But the ridge was not above a quarter of a mile in width, and the bears, striking directly across it, evidently preferred seeking safety beyond a crack, over which they could pass by swimming. The first plunge into the hummocks was rather exciting. Jensen's team led the way, and Hans, following after, rushed up pell-mell alongside. Jensen's sledge was nearly capsized, and Sonntag rolled off in the snow; but he was fortunate enough to catch the 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.