ollow me. 'What!' exclaimed he, 'you don't mean to attack them?'
'That's just what I am going to do,' said I; 'and, if you can do
anything with "The Delight," now's your chance.' 'I'll stand by you,'
said the Dean, grasping his weapon; 'better to be killed outright by the
bears than to let them starve us to death, and then very likely kill us
afterwards.'

"Desperate as was our condition, I could not help being amused by the
Dean's way of putting the matter,--'first starved to death, and then
killed'; and I think this little speech, turned in that happy way, did a
great deal to stiffen up my courage.

"I crawled out through the doorway of the hut (which I have told you
was not high enough for us to stand upright in), and, upon coming near
the end of it, there was the bear within three feet of me. His head was
turned away, and his nose was all buried up in the snow; for he had just
swallowed a duck, and was getting a fresh one, so that he did not see
me. My heart seemed to be in my mouth,--so close to the dreadful
monster,--so ferocious and fearful did he appear as I looked up at him.
Had I been alone, I think I should have retreated; but here was the Dean
behind me, and I was ashamed to back out, having gone thus far.
Summoning all my courage, therefore, I brought forward my spear, grasped
it with both hands, and plunged it with all my force into the animal's
neck, just behind the lower jaw and below the ear.

"It was a fortunate stroke. I had evidently, by chance, cut some great
blood-vessel, for the blood spouted from the wound in a regular stream.
The bear dropped his duck very quickly, I can tell you. He was probably
never so much astonished in all his life before. I had come upon him so
stealthily, and he was so absorbed in what he was about, that he had
never once suspected the presence of an enemy, but thought himself, no
doubt, a very lucky bear to find such a dinner ready caught for him, and
was quite as little concerned about who the owner might be as most
people would be if they found a bag of gold.

"But I caused him to sing another tune than to be constantly going 'Ung,
ung, ung,' to frighten off the little bears, for he roared with terror,
so that you might have heard him half a mile; and, finding that he could
not wheel around as quickly as he wanted to, he roared again, louder
than before, which sounded so dreadful that I drew back into the hut
quite instinctively, and thus lost the opportunity to giv