and foam.

At this moment there was a shout close at hand, and two other Eskimos
ran out from behind the ice-hummocks and joined their comrade. They
were armed with long lances, the handles of which were made of bone, and
the points of beautiful white ivory tipped with steel. It was
afterwards discovered that these natives obtained small pieces of iron
and steel from the Eskimos further south, who were in the habit of
trading at the settlements on the coast of Greenland.

The strangers at once ran to the edge of the pool and gave the bull
walrus two deep wounds with their lances. They also wounded the female.
This seemed to render them more furious than ever. They dived again.
The first Eskimo again shifted his position, and the others ran back a
short distance. They were not a moment too soon in these changes, for
the ice was again burst upward at the spot they had just quitted, and
the enraged beasts once more came bellowing to the surface and vented
their fury on the ice.

It may seem almost incredible to the reader, _but it is a fact_, that
this battle lasted fully four hours. At the end of the third hour it
seemed to the sailors who were watching it, that the result was still
doubtful, for the Eskimos were evidently becoming tired, while the
monsters of the Polar seas were still furious.

"I think we might help them with a butlet," whispered Baker. "It might
frighten them, perhaps, but it would save them a good deal of trouble."

"Wait a little longer," replied Gregory. "I have it in my mind to
astonish them. You see they have wounded the female very badly, but
when the male dies, which he cannot now be long of doing, she will dive
and make off, and so they'll lose her, for they don't seem to have
another harpoon and line."

"Perhaps they have one behind the hummocks," suggested Davy Butts, whose
teeth were chattering in his head with cold.

"If they had they would have used it long ago," said Gregory. "At any
rate I mean to carry out my plan--which is this. When the bull is about
dead I will fire at the female and try to hit her in a deadly part, so
as to kill her at once. Then, Sam, you will run out with our harpoon
and dart into her to prevent her sinking, or diving if she should not be
killed. And you, Davy, will follow me and be ready with a musket."

This plan had just been settled when the bull walrus began to show signs
of approaching death. Gregory therefore took a deliberate aim with