244 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



trying to hide in a crevasse. I wanted to badl}', but 

 couldn't, for I scale one hundred and ninety pounds, and 

 take a big hole. The Bear was now ten yards away. 

 Should I try my last chance? No; best wait until he was 

 closer, and then one shot more. I knew the revolvers 

 would be of no more use than pea-shooters against the 

 brute. 



How I wished I'd stayed at home, and not come on this 

 fool's errand! I knew I had to die some day, but it 

 wasn' t nice to think of being masticated by a big, dirty- 

 looking, fish-eating Polar Bear. And then to have the 

 Foxes gnawing at my bones, and fighting as to which 

 should get the ones with the most marrow ! Oh, dear ! how 

 I did want to go home ! 



I glanced at Will. He was pale as death. The hole 

 wasn't large enough to cover him, and the worm had 

 turned. He knelt on the ice, knife in one hand, Colt in the 

 other. As I looked, he fired a shot that I should think 

 went about ten feet over the Bear's head, and the revolver 

 nearly jumped out of his hand; but the intention was good, 

 and I forgave him. 



"Will," I said, " I've been mean to you sometimes, and 

 you've played it low-down on me on several occasions, but 

 now that we're going to be coffined together in a measly 

 Bear, let's forget our differences, and forgive one another." 



"All right, old boy," he answered; "adieu until we 

 meet again — in the interior of the Bear." 



The brute w^as but five feet from the muzzle of my rifle 

 now, and as he came on, head well up, I aimed at the base 

 of the throat, i^ulled the trigger, and the next thing was 

 knocked over backward, with the Bear atop of me. 



I have suffered terrors before. I have been in a railway 

 wreck; have even acted as marker in a ladies' revolver 

 shooting-match, and, after enduring many agonies of appre- 

 hension, have received a bullet in the leg from a fair cham- 

 pion's weapon; I have been asked "my intentions" by a 

 muscular papa, but I never suffered before as I did there 

 for a few seconds, which seemed to me so many hours. I 



