ough to kill them with a pole, suppose?" Wade
queried.

"That's the way the sealers kill them," replied the captain. "Send
the men out on the ice with nothing but clubs and knives. The seals
can't move very fast: nothing but their flippers to help themselves
with. The men run along the edges of the ice, and get between them and
the water. The seals make for the water; and the men knock them on the
heads with clubs, and then butcher them."

"It's a horribly bloody business, I should think," said Raed.

"Well, not so bad as a Brighton slaughter-pen, quite," rejoined the
captain. "But I never much admired it, I must confess."

Just then Donovan came racing out of the fog, and, jumping for the
rail, drew his legs up as if he believed them in great peril.

"What ails you?" Kit cried out. "What are you running from?"

"Oh! nothing--much," replied Donovan, panting. "Met--a--bear out here:
that's all."

"Met a bear!" exclaimed Raed.

"Yes. I was going along, trying to get by some of the seals. All at
once I was face to face with a mighty great chap, on the same business
with myself, I suppose. Thought I wouldn't wait. He looked pretty big.
I'd nothing but the pole, you know."

"We must have him!" exclaimed Wade.

"Best way will be to let down the boat, and work round the floe to
prevent his taking to the water," advised the captain. "They will swim
like ducks three or four miles at a time."

While the boat was being let down, Kit and I ran to load the muskets.

"I'm going to put the bayonets on our two," said Kit. "They'll be
handy if we should come to close quarters with him."

Raed and Wade, with the captain, were getting ready to go out on the
ice. Weymouth and Hobbs were already in the boat. Kit and I followed.

"Now be very careful about firing in this fog," the captain called
after us. "We are going off to the right, round the edge of the floe
on that side. You keep off on the left to see that he don't escape
that way. Head him up toward the schooner if you can; but look out how
you shoot."

Old Trull and Corliss, each with a gun, had been stationed at the rail
to shoot the bear from the deck if he should come out in sight.

Thus arranged, we pulled away, veering in and out among the
ice-patches, and keeping about twenty yards from the floe. We could
just see the edge of it rising a few feet from the water.

"Guess the bear run from Don after all his fright," said Weymouth
when we had gone a hundred y