430 
HASTY RETREAT. 
“ I may confess it to these well-worn pages: there 
was something not altogether pleasant in the silent 
communings of the next few minutes; but they were 
silent ones. 
“I had no stimulus to loquacity, and the bear had 
ceased to be communicative. The floe was about 
three-quarters of a tide; some ten feet it may be, lower 
than the ice-foot on which I lay. The bear was of 
course below my horizon. I began after a while to 
think over the reality of what I had heard, and to 
doubt whether it might not be after all a creature of 
the brain. It was very cold on that ice-foot. I re¬ 
solved to crawl to the edge of it and peer under my 
hands into the dark shadow of the hummock-ridges. 
“I did so. One look : nothing. A second : no bear 
after all. A third : what is that long rounded shade ? 
Stained ice? Yes: stained ice. The stained ice gave 
a gross menagerie roar, and charged on the instant for 
my position. I had not even a knife, and did not wait 
to think what would have been appropriate if I had 
had one. I ran,—ran as I never expect these scurvy- 
stiffened knees to run again,—throwing off first one 
mitten and then its fellow to avoid pursuit. I gained 
the brig, and the bear my mittens. I got back one 
of them an hour afterward, but the other was carried 
off as a trophy in spite of all the rifles we could bring 
to the rescue. (66) 
“ November 24, Friday.—The weather still mild. 
I attempted to work to-day at charting. I placed a 
large board on our stove, and pasted my paper* to it. 
