are the most
useful animals in these countries: they furnish food, clothes, light,
and fuel. Do you hear, Dick?" continued he, caressing his friend;
"we must have a bear, so look out."

Dick, who was smelling the ice as the doctor spoke, started off all
at once, quick as an arrow. He barked loudly, and, notwithstanding
his distance, the sportsmen heard him distinctly. The extreme
distance to which sound is carried in these low temperatures is
astonishing; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of the
constellations in the boreal sky.

The sportsmen, guided by Dick's barking, rushed on his traces; they
had to run about a mile, and arrived quite out of breath, for the
lungs are rapidly suffocated in such an atmosphere. Dick was pointing
at about fifty paces from an enormous mass at the top of a mound of
ice.

"We've got him," said the doctor, taking aim.

"And a fine one," added Bell, imitating the doctor.

"It's a queer bear," said Johnson, waiting to fire after his two
companions.

Dick barked furiously. Bell advanced to within twenty feet and fired,
but the animal did not seem to be touched. Johnson advanced in his
turn, and after taking a careful aim, pulled the trigger.

"What," cried the doctor, "not touched yet? Why, it's that cursed
refraction. The bear is at least a thousand paces off."

The three sportsmen ran rapidly towards the animal, whom the firing
had not disturbed; he seemed to be enormous, and without calculating
the dangers of the attack, they began to rejoice in their conquest.
Arrived within reasonable distance they fired again; the bear,
mortally wounded, gave a great jump and fell at the foot of the mound.
Dick threw himself upon it.

"That bear wasn't difficult to kill," said the doctor.

"Only three shots," added Bell in a tone of disdain, "and he's down."

"It's very singular," said Johnson.

"Unless we arrived at the very moment when it was dying of old age,"
said the doctor, laughing.

So speaking, the sportsmen reached the foot of the mound, and, to
their great stupefaction, they found Dick with his fangs in the body
of a white fox.

"Well, I never!" cried Bell.

"We kill a bear and a fox falls," added the doctor.

Johnson did not know what to say.

"Why!" said the doctor, with a roar of laughter, "it's the refraction
again!"

"What do you mean, Mr. Clawbonny?" asked the carpenter.

"Why, it deceived us about the size as it did about the distance.
It made us see a bea