388 
A BEAR-FIGHT. 
panion six-shooter, and ran on deck. A medium-sized 
bear, with a four months’ cub, was in active warfare 
with our dogs. They were hanging on her skirts, and 
she with wonderful alertness was picking out one vic¬ 
tim after another, snatching him by the nape of the 
neck, and flinging him many feet or rather yards, by a 
barely perceptible movement of her head. 
“Tudla, our master dog, was already hors de combat: 
he had been tossed twice. Jenny, just as I emerged 
from the hatch, was making an extraordinary somerset 
of some eight fathoms, and alighted senseless. Old 
Wliitey, stanch but not bear-wise, had been the first 
in the battle: he was yelping in helplessness on the 
snow. 
“It seemed as if the controversy was adjourned: and 
Nannook evidently thought so; for she turned oil’ to 
our beef-barrels, and began in the most unconcerned 
manner to turn them over and nose out their fatness. 
She was apparently as devoid of fear as any of the 
bears in the stories of old Barentz and the Spitsbergen 
voyagers. 
“I lodged a pistol-ball in the side of the cub. At 
once the mother placed her little one between her 
hind-legs, and, shoving it along, made her way behind 
the beef-house. Mr. Ohlsen wounded her as she went 
with my Webster rifle; but she scarcely noticed it. 
She tore down by single efforts of her forearms the 
barrels of frozen beef which made the triple walls of 
the storehouse, mounted the rubbish, and, snatching 
up a half-barrel of herrings, carried it down by her 
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