The unfortunate animal was still fighting, and still retreating, embarrassed by the dogs, yet affectionately carrying along her wounded cub, and though wounded, bleeding, and fatigued, gaining ground upon her pursuers, when Hans and Dr. Kane secured the victory, such as it was, for their own side, by delivering a couple of rifle-balls. She staggered in front of her young one, confronted her assailants in death-like defiance, and did not sink until pierced by six more bullets.
When her body was skinned, no fewer than nine balls were discovered. She proved to be of medium size, very lean, and without a particle of food in her stomach. Hunger, probably, had stimulated her courage to desperation. The net weight of the cleansed carcass was 300 pounds; that of the entire animal, 650 pounds; her length, only 7 feet 8 inches.
It is said that bears in this lean condition are more palatable and wholesome than when fat; and that the impregnation of fatty oil through the cellular tissues makes a well-fed bear nearly uneatable. The flesh of a famished beast, though less nutritious as body-fuel or as a stimulating diet, is rather sweet and tender than otherwise. Moral: starve your bear before you eat him!
The little cub was larger than the qualifying adjective would imply. She was taller than a dog, and her weight 114 lbs. She sprang upon the corpse of her slaughtered mother, and rent the air with woful lamentations. All efforts to noose her she repelled with singular ferocity; but at last, being completely muzzled with a line fastened by a running knot between her jaws and the back of her head, she was dragged off to the brig amid the uproar of the dogs.
Dr. Kane asserts that during this fight, and the compulsory somersets which it involved, not a dog suffered seriously. He expected, from his knowledge of the hugging propensity of the plantigrades, that the animal would rear, or it she did not rear, would at least use her fore arms; but she invariably seized the dogs with her teeth, and after disposing of them for a time, refrained from following up her advantage,—probably because she had her cub to take care of. The Eskimos state that this is the habit of the hunted bear. One of the Smith Sound dogs made no exertion whatever when he was seized, but allowed himself to be flung, with all his muscles relaxed, a really fearful distance; the next instant he rose and renewed the attack. According to the Eskimos, the dogs soon learn this “possum-playing” habit.
It would seem that the higher the latitude, the more ferocious the bear, or that he increases in ferocity as he recedes from the usual hunting-fields.
At Oominak, one winter day, an Eskimo and his son were nearly killed by a bear that had housed himself in an iceberg. They attacked him with the lance, but he boldly turned on them, and handled them severely before they could make their escape.
The continued hostility of man, however, has had, in Dr. Kane’s opinion, a modifying influence upon the ursine character in South Greenland; at all events, the bears of that region never attack, and even in self-defence seldom inflict injury upon, the hunters. Many instances have occurred where they have defended themselves, and even charged after having been wounded, but in none of them was life lost.
A stout Eskimo, an assistant to a Danish cooper of Upernavik, fired at a she-bear, and the animal closed at the instant of receiving the ball. The man had the presence of mind to fling himself prone on the ground, extending his arm to protect his head, and afterwards lying perfectly motionless. The beast was deceived. She gave the arm a bite or two, but finding her enemy did not stir, she retired a few paces, and sat upon her haunches to watch. But her watch was not as wary as it should have been, for the hunter dexterously reloaded his rifle, and slew her with the second shot.