edth chance was indubitably worth the risk--better
than inaction, and better than the suicide which would inevitably come
with the weakening brain, after another winter such as that we had just
passed through.

"Meditating so, I heard a noise behind me, and, turning, found myself
almost face to face with a great she-bear, with two cubs of the year
running gambolling about her. I had not even so much as a fish-spear
with me. With my heart leaping like the piston-rod of an engine, I sat
as still as though I had been a pillar of ice carved out of the hummock.
The cubs were within twenty paces, and the mother would have passed by
but for the roystering youngsters. They came galloping awkwardly up, and
nosed all over me, rubbing themselves against my clothes with just such
a purring noise as a cat might make. There was no harm in them, but
their whining caused the old bear to halt, then abruptly to turn round
and come slowly toward me.

"As I sat motionless I saw that she stood on the ground beside me, her
nose quite on a level with my face. She came and smelled me over as if
uncertain. Then she took a walk all round me. One of the cubs put his
long thin snout into the pocket of my fur coat, and nuzzled delightedly
among the crumbs. His mother gave him a cuff with her paw which knocked
him sprawling three or four paces.

"Having finished her own survey, the bear-mother called away her
offspring. The young bear which had first taken the liberty of search,
waited till his mother was a few steps off, and then came slyly round
and sunk his nose deep in the corresponding pocket on the other side. It
was a false move and showed bad judgment. A fish-hook attached itself
sharply to his nostril, and he withdrew his head with a howl of pain.
The mother turned with an impatient grunt, and I gave myself up for
lost. She came back at a great stretching gallop, to where the cub was
lying on the snow pawing at his nose. His mother, having turned him over
two or three times as if he were a bag of wool, and finding nothing
wrong, concluded that he had been stung by a gadfly, or that he was
making a fuss about nothing, paying no attention to me whatever. Having
finished her inspection, she cuffed him well for his pains, as a
troublesome youngster, and disappeared over the _tundra_. I sat there
for the matter of an hour, not daring to move lest the lady-bruin might
return. Then fearfully and cautiously I found my way back to the boat
and my