ed.

How to do it was the difficulty, and, still more, how to do it with
safety. Both the rifles were still lying loaded under the shelter,
probably under the very feet of the bear.

"Well, we've got to take a chance!" declared Macgregor at last. "Talk
about cold feet! We'll certainly have them frozen if we stand here
much longer. Scatter out, boys, all around the camp. Then we'll
snowball the brute out. Likely he's too scared to want to fight.
Anyhow, if he jumps out on one side, the man on the opposite side must
jump into the camp and grab a rifle."

It looked risky, to provoke a charge from the animal in that deep snow,
where they could hardly move, but they waded around the camp till they
stood at equal distances apart, surrounding the hollowed space.

"Now let him have it!" cried Peter.

Immediately they began to throw snowballs into the camp, aiming at that
dark hole under the cedar roof where the animal was hidden. But the
snow was too dry to pack into lumps, and the light masses they flung
produced no effect. Peter broke off branches from a dead tree and
threw them into the shelter, without causing the bear to come out.
Finally Fred, who happened to be standing beside a birch tree, peeled
off a great strip of bark and lighted it with a match.

"Hold on! Don't throw that!" yelled Peter.

He was too late. Fred had already cast the flaming mass into the camp,
too close to the piles of cedar twigs. The resinous leaves caught and
flashed up. There was a glare of smoky flame--a wild scramble and
scurry under the shelter, and the bear burst out, and plunged at the
snowy sides of the pit on the side opposite Fred's position.

He fell back as he had done before, but floundered up with a second
leap. Maurice, who was nearest, gave a shrill yell and tried to dash
aside, but he stumbled and went head-long in the deep snow.

Fred instantly leaped into the camp. The shelter was full of smoke and
light flame, but he knew where the rifles lay, and snatched one.
Straightening up, he was just in time to see the bear vanishing with
long leaps into the darkness, ploughing up clouds of snow.

He fired one shot wildly, then another, but there was no sign of the
animal's being stopped, and the next instant it was out of sight.

"Quick! Stamp out this fire!" exclaimed Peter at his shoulder.

They tore down the flaming branches and beat them out in the snow. The
light flame was easily put out, but it left th