shook the monster's frame
as it fell dead upon the ice.

Annatock stood for a few minutes leaning on his spear, and regarding the
bear with a grim look of satisfaction; while Peetoot laughed, and
shouted, and danced around it like a maniac. How long he would have
continued these wild demonstrations it is difficult to say--probably
until he was exhausted--but his uncle brought them to a speedy
termination by bringing the butt-end of his spear into smart contact
with Peetoot's flank. With a howl, in which consternation mingled with
his glee, the boy darted away over the ice like a reindeer to convey the
glad news to his friends, and to fetch a sledge for the bear's carcass.

On returning to the village there was immediately instituted another
royal feast, which continued from day to day, gradually decreasing in
joyous intensity as the provender decreased in bulk, until the walruses,
the bear, and the seals were entirely consumed.

Soon after this the weather became decidedly mild, and the power of the
sun's rays was so great that the snow on the island and the ice on the
sea began to be resolved into water. During this period several
important changes took place in the manners and customs of the
Esquimaux. The women, who had worn deerskin shoes during the winter,
put on their enormous waterproof summer boots. The men, when out on the
ice in search of seals, used a pair of wooden spectacles, with two
narrow slits to peep through, in order to protect their eyes from the
snow-blindness caused by the glare of the sun on the ice and snow--a
complaint which is apt to attack all arctic travellers in spring if not
guarded against by some such appliance as the clumsy wooden spectacles
of the Esquimaux. Active preparations were also made for the erection
of skin summer tents, and the launching of kayaks and oomiaks.
Moreover, little boys were forbidden to walk, as they had been wont to
do, on the tops of the snow-houses, lest they should damage the
rapidly-decaying roofs; but little boys in the far north inherit that
tendency to disobedience which is natural to the children of Adam the
world over, and on more than one occasion, having ventured to run over
the igloos, were caught in the act by the thrusting of a leg now and
then through the roofs thereof, to the indignation of the inmates below.

A catastrophe of this sort happened to poor Peetoot not long after the
slaying of the polar bear, and brought the winter camp to