showing that the animal must have been
seriously wounded.

"He staggered and went down here," said Johannes, pointing to
unmistakable marks; and then, as the back of the animal stood up white
as the snow around, Johannes began to trot forward.

"Don't do that!" cried Steve excitedly. "Let them go first with the
guns."

"No fear, sir; he's frozen stiff."

So it proved, but a horrifying sight presented itself; for there were
footprints about, which the Norseman pointed out as belonging to three
more bears, a large and two small ones, which had been devouring the one
that had been shot, and now lay, partially eaten, in the snow.

"Ugh! the cannibals!" exclaimed Steve, turning away in disgust.

"Will they come back to the feast?" said the doctor. "They may, sir;
but I think not. They have gorged themselves, and will have gone back
to the cave they occupy, perhaps to go to sleep for a couple of months.
I think they lie up during the very coldest weather, and I should say it
was cold enough for that. Besides, this carcass is a mass of ice now.--
It is very cold."

"Yes, and dark enough for anything." But as the days--they could hardly
be called days--glided by the last gleams of a dim twilight died out,
till in the clearest times there was nothing but a faint dawn to be seen
at twelve o'clock, where they had seen the rim of the sun for the last
time, and the cold was intense, beyond anything they could have
imagined. When the men were crowded together in the forecastle their
breath rose in a thick mist, and Watty murmured bitterly to Steve about
it, for he said it was a shame that the deck was not freshly cleaned.

"A' through snaw-storm last neet," he said, "the snaw came tumm'ling
doon upo' our bets till she was a' wet."

"But there was no snowstorm last night, Watty."

"Why, she saw it wi' her ain een."

"It was only the frozen breath," said Steve, as he recalled his
experience on the deck the night the bear was shot.

"Ah, weel, she dinna ken. Maybe she's richt; but the cauld is chust
awfu'. Tid she ken the McByle burnt her foots last nicht?"

"What, Andra? No."

"Oh ay, she tid. She was sitting by the fire trying to blaw the ice oot
o' the pipes, for she couldna ket the pipes to skirl. She was sitting
leuking on, when she smelt something oot. Chacobsen she says, `She'll
hae to mind, Andra, for she's purning her foots'; and Andra she says tat
Chacobsen should keep her chokes to hersel when sh