n, and eat up all our food and fuel? It was a fearful thought.

"How often do we pass almost insensibly from the greatest terror to the
greatest courage! Relieved now from all immediate personal
apprehension, we felt at once inspired to protect our property, on the
safety of which our lives depended. We ceased at once to feel like
standing passively on the defensive, but immediately crawled out of the
hut to do something,--exactly what, we did not know. Our thoughts had,
indeed, hardly time to take shape in our minds, so quickly had the
change come in the situation and in our feelings.

"The bear was plainly in sight as soon as we got outside, tearing down
our storehouse; but he appeared not to be thinking of us at all. Without
reflecting in the least what I was about, but filled only with alarm at
the prospect of losing our food and fuel, I set up a loud shout, in
which the Dean joined; and, to our great surprise, the huge beast, that
had caused us so much terror, took fright himself, and without looking
round, or stopping a moment, he made a great bound, and tore away over
the rocks, plunging through the snowdrifts, and rolling down the hill
into the valley, where we had dug the turf, in a most ridiculous manner.

"We passed now from a state of terror to a feeling of perfect safety,
and in such an unexpected manner, too, that we laughed outright, and we
thought that we had been very foolish to be so frightened, and looked
upon our enemy as a great coward. So we concluded that an animal who was
so easily scared as that would never attack us, and therefore, getting
our weapons, we followed after him, hoping to drive him from the island.
The jumps that he had made were quite immense, showing clearly the state
of his mind.

"Following the tracks of the bear, we came very soon in full view of the
beach where the carcass of the narwhal was lying, half buried in ice and
snow. The tracks led in that direction, and finally pointed straight to
the spot. He had in his flight evidently smelled the old narwhal, and,
remembering only that he was hungry, had stopped there; for presently we
caught sight of him, tearing away at the narwhal with as much energy as
he had before wasted upon our storehouse.

"We had come quite near to the bear before we saw him; and now our
spirits underwent another sudden change, and our minds were once more
filled with such feelings of respect for the bear, that we turned about
immediately, and beat