CHAPTER XXXII 



UGH ugh ! " our starboard bear shouts to-day ; not 

 a roar now, it is a hopeless complaint. " Ugh ! let 

 me out ugh ! look at my coat, all stained and 

 soiled. . . . Ugh ! let me out, I don't want to go to a zoo " 

 then almost silence, only a steady chawing of timber and 

 scrape, scrape, for hours on end. 



The above labour ended in his getting his head and one 

 paw out this morning early, and the skipper and Hamilton 

 only being about the rest of the crew were afloat in the 

 boats they had a lively time. The skipper anxiously 

 shouted : " All hands on board ! " and they came and all bore 

 a hand, and there were timbers, nails, hatchets and hammers 

 all about, and bears' roars, till it was subdued. Hamilton 

 got his hand hurt. It is a wily fellow this starboard bear, 

 waiting his opportunity till all were overboard hunting, and 

 again I expected to have to use my pistol. Almost all 

 hands were in the boats securing two bear cubs, about a 

 third of the size of the bear referred to. We spotted them 

 and their mother on a floe about five A.M., playing together, 

 poor things, and they took to the water and we pursued. 

 Dauntlessly we approached, Don Jose in the bow, rifle in 

 hand. Without tremor he calmly held his fire till within a 

 few yards ; the first shot went extremely close, a second 

 actually touched the bear, but the range gradually shorten- 

 ing allowed of greater accuracy and the third shot hit it in 

 the neck and killed it. 



A boat followed the two youngsters, and after a number 

 of ineffective throws they were at last roped. From board- 

 ship we rather smiled at the ineffective attempt to lasso, but 

 we gather that several casts were well thrown and over their 

 necks, but each time the cunning little beggars threw the 

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