Sakalar, who still kept ahead of the party, when making a wide circuit out at sea about midday, at the foot of a steep hill of rather rough ice, found his dogs suddenly increasing their speed, but in the right direction.  To this he had no objection, though it was very doubtful what was beyond.  However, the dogs darted ahead with terrific rapidity, until they reached the summit of the hill.  The ice was here very rough and salt, which impeded the advance of the sledge:  but off are the dogs, down a very steep descent, furiously tugging at the sledge-halter, till away they fly like lightning.  The harness had broken off, and Sakalar remained alone on the crest of the hill.  He leaped off the nartas, and stood looking at it with the air of a man stunned.  The journey seemed checked violently.  Next instant, his gun in hand, he followed the dogs right down the hill, dashing away too like a madman, in his long hunting-skates.  But the dogs were out of sight, and Sakalar soon found himself opposed by a huge wall of ice.  He looked back; he was wholly out of view of his companions.  To reconnoiter, he ascended the wall as best he could, and then looked down into a sort of circular hollow of some extent, where the ice was smooth and even watery.

He was about to turn away, when his sharp eye detected something moving, and all his love of the chase was at once aroused.  He recognized the snow-cave of a huge bear.  It was a kind of cavern, caused by the falling together of two pieces of ice, with double issue.  Both apertures the bear had succeeded in stopping up, after breaking a hole in the thin ice of the sheltered polina, or sheet of soft ice.  Here the cunning animal lay in wait.  How long he had been lying it was impossible to say, but almost as Sakalar crouched down to watch, a seal came to the surface, and lay against the den of its enemy to breathe.  A heavy paw was passed through the hole, and the sea-cow was killed in an instant.  A naturalist would have admired the wit of the ponderous bear, and passed on; but the Siberian hunter knows no such thought, and as the animal issued forth to seize his prey, a heavy ball, launched with unerring aim, laid him low.

Sakalar now turned away in search of his companions, whose aid was required to secure a most useful addition to their store of food; and as he did so, he heard a distant and plaintive howl.  He hastened in the direction, and in a quarter of an hour came to the mouth of a narrow gut between two icebergs.  The stick of the harness had caught in the fissure, and checked the dogs, who were barking with rage.  Sakalar caught the bridle, which had been jerked out of his hand, and turned the dogs round.  The animals followed his guidance, and he succeeded, after some difficulty, in bringing them to where lay his game.  He then fastened the bear and seal, both dead and frozen even in this short time, and joined his companions.