302 



a warning at the little store. " Bes' look 



out," he said. " Bear over dere on dat hice, 

 ndflVOCK Of kjg^ j^ j-jjg one i y[ e come nere to-night, 



^SJ^Z^l^^ soon's dark, see wat he kin find. He hun- 

 gry, an' oh, cross ; don't 'fraid noting. Bes' 

 set urn trap, ketch urn plenty meat." Then, 

 because he had left his own gun behind and 

 could borrow none in the village, he started 

 inland on his long tramp. 



Matwock the bear landed from his iceberg 

 as soon as it was dark, as Tomah had said, 

 and headed straight for the village. For a 

 month he had been adrift in the open sea 

 without food ; because the seals, which had 

 first enticed him away till fifty miles of open 

 water stretched between him and his native 

 haunts, had now returned to the coast to 

 rear their young on the rocks and grounded 

 ice-floes. Meanwhile the great berg to which 

 i he clung, as a mariner to a floating spar, 

 drifted steadily southward over the mist- 

 shrouded ocean with its base a thou- 

 \ sand feet deep in a powerful current, 

 jlto Most of the time he had slept, going 



ttCCfe. 



t 



1M1 





back to the old bear habit of 



