138 HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 



On the morning of the second day the sea had mode- 

 rated sufficiently to enable us to launch the boats, and, 

 once afloat, we shaped our course to the schooner. As we 

 passed a small wooded gully that descended to the shore 

 we came abreast of a couple of bears an old one and a 

 half-grown cub. The latter was the first to notice us, and 

 set off with that ridiculous shambling gallop, peculiar to 

 his species, as hard as he could go. After several unsuc- 

 cessful shots, a bullet from my short Snider caught him 

 through the loins, brought him up with a turn round, and a 

 bullet through the head finished him. In the meantime 

 the old one had succumbed to a combined fusillade of 

 Snow and the skipper, the jerking of the boats making it 

 very difficult to shoot with accurate aim. The old bear 

 had a good deal of white on the breast and shoulders, but 

 the cub was as much white dirty white as brown. We 

 wasted more than an hour trying to land, but the sea was 

 too rough. As it was, one of the boats was almost stove in r 

 so we were forced to leave the carcases, hoping to return 

 next day and remove the skins. This, as the sequel 

 proved, we were unable to do ; for so favoured were we by 

 circumstances that the bears were quite forgotten until too 

 late to save the skins. 



Considering that we had left the schooner in the early 

 morning of the eighth, and it was now afternoon on the 

 tenth, and that we had been living all that time on onions 

 and tobacco, with scarcely a cupful of water apiece, that we 

 were wet through and had had little sleep, it may be easily 

 imagined how eagerly we clambered on board, put on dry 

 clothes, and attacked a substantial meal. Baker had begun 

 to feel anxious about us, and had naturally many questions 

 to put, but had to defer the gratification of his curiosity till 

 we had stowed away large quantities of food, to which 

 mixed pickles and Worcester sauce added a zest hardly 

 required by "the hungry edge of appetite." Then at length 

 the skipper heaved a deep sigh and "reckoned he felt 

 kinder stiffened up." 



