ly some
boulders piled on the top of each other or a cluster of fallen broken
pine trees.

We looked at each other and pointed towards the spot--we knew that the
bear was under the snow there. Mikel whispered to me, "The bear sleeps
under that hillock of snow."

We surrounded the place, then on a sudden we shouted and made a terrific
noise. Two or three of the men fired their guns, the dogs barked
furiously.

[Illustration: "He sat on his haunches and looked at us, uttering a
tremendous growl."]

Then we saw the centre of the heap or hillock of snow tremble, as if
some live creature were moving slowly under it. Then the snow moved a
little quicker. There was no mistake, the bear was awakened, had
moved, and was on the point of rising; he was listening, and getting
ready to come out. The noise had frightened him. The snow trembled more
and more and rose higher and higher. Suddenly there was a great
upheaval, and great cracks appeared in the crusted snow. Then we saw
peeping out the head and back of a huge brown bear, then two legs, and
finally the whole animal.

He looked round him with amazement. He seemed to be dazed at the strange
and sudden sight before him. He sat on his haunches and looked at us,
uttering a tremendous growl. We could not tell whether he meant to fight
or to run. The dogs barked angrily around the huge beast, but did not
dare to approach near enough to attack him. In the meantime we had all
drawn together so that we could fire without danger of hitting any of
our party. The bear was getting ugly, gave a series of fierce growls,
and rose on his hind legs. At this moment Mikel and I fired. A grunt of
pain showed that the animal was hit. He ran a few steps towards us and
as we got ready to fire again the big beast fell, his blood reddening
the snow.

We gathered round and looked at him. He was a huge beast, but very thin
from his long fast, for he had been six months or more without food.

After the killing of the bear there was no time to be lost, for we had
deviated from our course and had gone eastward into Finland. So now we
had to go westward, and after two days' travelling we came to the river
Muonio, to a Finnish hamlet called Kuttainen, not far from Karesuando.

Now travelling became really dangerous. The frozen river was full of
treacherous cracks, and others were appearing all the time. Once in a
while we came to small open spaces, where we could see the swift water
of the stream r