During all these days of their imprisonment in the ice there was one incessant chase after bears,--looking out for bears from the crow's-nest, racing after bears over the ice, resulting in loss of life to a goodly number of those huge denizens of the Polar regions.
"Bear on the weather bow!" "Bear to leeward! all hands turn out!" were the cries from morning till night; and many a time did Nansen jump up from his berth but half dressed, and away over the ice to get a shot.
Toward evening one day in July Nansen was sitting up in the crow's-nest, making a sketch of the Greenland coast. On deck one of the crew, nicknamed Balloon, was keeping watch, and just as our artist was engrossed with his pencil, he heard Balloon shouting at the top of his voice, "Bear ahead!" In an instant Nansen sprang up, threw his painting-materials down on the deck below, quickly following the same himself down the rigging. But alas! by the time he had reached the deck and seized his rifle, the bear had disappeared.
"A pretty sort of fellow to sit up in the crow's-nest and not see a bear squatting just in front of the bows!" said the captain tauntingly.
But a day or two afterward Nansen fully retrieved his reputation. It was his last bear-hunt on the expedition, and this is what occurred:--
He and the captain and one of the sailors set out after a monstrous bear. The beast, however, was shy, and beat a speedy retreat. All three sprang after it. But as Nansen was jumping over an open place in the ice, he fell plump into the sea. His first thought on finding himself in the water was his rifle, which he flung upon the ice. But it slipped off again into the water, so Nansen had to dive after it. Next time he managed to throw it some distance across the ice, and then clambered up himself, of course wet through to the skin. But his cartridges, which were water-tight ones, were all right, and soon he rejoined his companions in pursuit, and outstripped them. In a little while he saw the bear making for a hummock, and made straight for him; on coming up to closer quarters the beast turned sharp round and dropped into the water, but not before Nansen was able to put a bullet into him. On reaching the edge of the ice, he could see no trace of the animal. Yes--there was something white yonder, a little below the surface, for the bear had dived. Presently he saw the animal pop its head up just in front of him, and a moment after its paws were on the edge of the floe, on which, with a fierce and angry growl, the huge beast managed to drag himself up. Nansen now fired again, and had the satisfaction of seeing the bear drop back dead into the water, where he had to hold it by the ears to prevent it sinking, till his companions came up, when they were able to haul it up on the ice.