86 



KILL THE BEAR. 



bullets ricochetted on the water close past Ms 

 ears, and feeling that we must get to closer 

 quarters, we ran for the boat, jumped in, and 

 pursued him with the oars : we overhauled him 

 much sooner than I expected, and on getting 

 within about forty yards we both fired again, 

 and one bullet going through his jaw, and the 

 other through his brains, poor Bruin floated 

 dead upon the water. We put the noose of a 

 sea-horse line round his neck, and towed him 

 ashore to divest him of the &quot;white ru-.&quot; 



-rr-r 



&quot;While so satisfactorily engaged on the rocks, 

 two bull walruses hove in sight floating 

 rapidly by, asleep, on a cake of ice. Lord 

 David went after them in one boat, while I 

 walked up to reconnoitre the island, thinking 

 there might perhaps be another bear about the 

 rocks : there was none, but I saw to my great 

 uneasiness that a dense fog had come on, and 

 the sloop was nowhere visible: the current 

 was carrying the ice past the island at the rate 

 of five miles an hour from north-east to south 

 west, so that looking for the sloop was per 

 fectly hopeless, and it appeared as if we should 

 have to bivouac for a day or two on the island. 

 The fat or grease of Ursus maritimus had 

 not looked particularly appetising, so I began 



