went to see who would get loaded first to get the next
shot. But, my gun being so much the smaller and more easily handled, I
had my ball down before Kit had his powder-wad rammed. The rest stood
clapping and cheering us. Hastily priming the tube, I whipped on a
cap, then beckoned to old Trull.

"Here," said I, "shoot that bear for me!"

The old salt chuckled, and had his eye to the piece immediately. I
snatched up my glass. Kit paused to see the result. The old man pulled
the trigger. There was a moment's hush, then a great "Hurrah!" The
bear had jumped up, and, whirling partly round, ran off across the
ice-field roaring, _we fancied_; for he had his mouth open, and
snapping round to his flanks. He had been grazed, if nothing more.
With the glass we could detect blood on his white coat.

"He's hit!" said I. "Let's bear up into the channel: that'll stop him
from getting back to the high islands. We can then hunt him at leisure
on the ice-field. He won't care to swim clean up to the"--

"Hark!" exclaimed Raed suddenly. "What's that noise?"

We all listened.

It was a noise not greatly unlike the faint, distant cawing and hawing
of a vast flock of crows as they sometimes congregate in autumn.

"It's some sort of water-fowl _clanging_ out there about the high
islands," said I.

Again it rose, borne on the wind,--"_Ta-yar-r-r! ta-yar-r-r!
ta-yar-r-r!_" Had we been at home, I should have taken it for a
distant mass-meeting cheering the result of the presidential election,
or perhaps the presidential nomination at the convention. It had a
peculiarly barbarous, reckless sound, which was not wholly unfamiliar.
But up here in Hudson Straits we were at a loss how to account for it.

"I believe it's the Huskies," said the captain. "Take a good look all
around with your glasses."

We ran our eyes over the islands. They looked bare of any thing like
an Esquimau convention. Presently Kit uttered an exclamation.

"Why, just turn your glass off to the main, beyond the islands; right
over the ice-field; on that lofty brown headland that juts out from
the main! There they are!"

There they were, sure enough,--a grimy, bare-headed crowd, swinging
their arms, and gesticulating wildly. It could not have been less than
five miles; but the faint "_Ta-yar-r-r!_" still came to our ears.

"Suppose they are calling to us?" cried Raed.

"Yes; looks like that," replied the captain.

"Heard the guns, you see," said Kit; "those we