the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE WALRUS' FOE.

To stalk or crawl up to an animal within shooting distance upon a level
prairie, where there is no sign of bush or tree, not so much as a big
clump of grass, is a difficult task which it takes a Red Indian to
achieve, with his peculiar powers of creeping along the ground almost
like a caterpillar, moving, as it were, upon his crooked fingers and his
toes; but out upon a rocky shore, among piled-up masses of ice, many of
them big enough to hide a couple of hundred men, the stalking appeared
to be simplicity itself, and the three bearers of firearms stepped
jauntily along toward the walrus herd, screening themselves behind the
masses of ice with more than one slip and stumble.

The scene was brilliant in the extreme, with the sun's rays darting from
the broken fragments so lately deposited by the ice pressure, which was
all that remained of the terrible convulsion of nature in which the
expedition so nearly came to utter destruction. Saving the cries of the
sea-birds and the ripple of the waves on the shore, there was not a
sound to be heard. The water had regained its balance, so to speak, and
to right and left, as far as they could see, there was a dark, open
space of about a quarter of a mile wide on an average between the rugged
ice-piled shore and the pack, with comparatively few fragments, flashing
with light as they glided along in the now gentle current.

In their passage in the boat through the gloomy chasm the cold had been
intense; but a few minutes' climbing over the ice in the clear sunshine,
carrying a heavy rifle and ammunition, resulted in a pause behind a huge
mass of piled-up ice, where flat piece after flat piece had been thrust
one above the other, and a declaration that it was very hot.

"Hist!" whispered Johannes, who, with Jakobsen, was their companion on
land once more. "A sound may alarm the walrus."

"But I should have thought they would be tame enough up here," said
Steve. "They can't have seen men before. Couldn't we walk up to them
boldly?"

The Norseman shook his head.

"They have other enemies beside man, sir, and they are suspicious of
anything strange which they see moving. Look," he continued, pointing
downward from the height to which they had climbed.

"What at? More walrus?"

"No, sir; that shining water. We need not have left the boat. It is
the continuation of the passage we came through, and you can trace i