f the cliffs, within long gunshot. Unfortunately not one of
the party had brought fire-arms. Intent only on catching a sight of the
sun, they had hurried off unmindful of the possibility of their catching
sight of anything else. They had not even a spear; and the few oak
cudgels that some carried, however effectual they might have proved at
Donnybrook, were utterly worthless there.

There were four large bears and a young one, and the gambols they
performed were of the most startling as well as amusing kind. But that
which interested and surprised the crew most was the fact that these
bears were playing with barrels, and casks, and tent-poles, and sails.
They were engaged in a regular frolic with these articles, tossing them
up in the air, pawing them about, and leaping over them like kittens. In
these movements they displayed their enormous strength several times.
Their leaps, although performed with the utmost ease, were so great as
to prove the iron nature of their muscles. They tossed the heavy casks,
too, high into the air like tennis-balls, and in two instances, while
the crew were watching them, dashed a cask in pieces with a slight blow
of their paws. The tough canvas yielded before them like sheets of
paper, and the havoc they committed was wonderful to behold.

"Most extraordinary!" exclaimed Captain Guy, after watching them for
some time in silence. "I cannot imagine where these creatures can have
got hold of such things. Were not the goods at Store Island all right
this morning, Mr. Bolton?"

"Yes, sir, they were."

"Nothing missing from the ship?"

"No, sir, nothing."

"It's most unaccountable."

"Captain Guy," said O'Riley, addressing his commander with a solemn
face, "haven't ye more nor wance towld me o' the queer thing in the
deserts they calls the _mirage_?"

"I have," answered the captain, with a puzzled look.

"An' didn't ye say there was somethin' like it in the Polar Seas, that
made ye see flags, an' ships, an' things o' that sort when there was no
sich things there at all?"

"True, O'Riley, I did."

"Faix, then, it's my opinion that yon bears is a _mirage_, an' the
sooner we git out o' their way the better."

A smothered laugh greeted this solution of the difficulty.

"I think I can give a better explanation--begging your pardon, O'Riley,"
said Captain Ellice, who had hitherto looked on with a sly smile. "More
than a year ago, when I was driven past this place to the northward, I