FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139  
140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   >>   >|  
ht carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don't mind admitting that my scalp tickled. However, when I'd hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into position with a good, wholesome _cluck_, my nervousness very soon filtered out. There's a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a Henry--which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers--that you can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I was tramping again. The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air there has a [v]deceptive light--it enlarges things--and the beast appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail. There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself, and stood with the Henry ready to fire. There was nothing you might call [v]diffidence about that bear. He slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him swinging about as though it was too large for his carcass and he was wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me angry. I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a bit of [v]hummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that. Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the Henry and fired her off. _Cluck_ went the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang. My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady and unconcerned as a [v]traction engine! I clawed out that cartridge and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skin
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139  
140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
steady
 

diffidence

 

creature

 

hammer

 

stopped

 
carried
 
carcass
 

swinging

 
wearing
 

misfit


dinner

 

certainty

 
needful
 

slouched

 
preferred
 

interfere

 
middle
 
loneliness
 

footsteps

 

nipple


misfire

 

raised

 

coming

 

bitter

 

crammed

 

cartridge

 

unconcerned

 

traction

 

engine

 

clawed


hummock

 
conveniently
 

opposite

 

waited

 

marksman

 
sealskin
 

position

 
shuffled
 

direction

 
promptly

tramping
 

dropped

 
started
 
whalers
 

sealers

 

comfort

 
wholesome
 

animal

 
nervousness
 

filtered