tion, saw nothing of the unchanging night, the
implacable stars, the heatless and mirthless dancing flames. In a lair
between two rocks, under seven or eight feet of snow, he lay snuggled
against the warm, furry body of his mother, safe hidden from the world
of night and cold. The mother, whose hot breathing kept open a little
arched hollow in the sheltering snow, spent practically all her time in
sleep, the ample layers of fat which the previous summer had stored upon
her ribs supplying food and fuel to her giant frame. The cub, too, slept
away most of the long unvarying hours, waking to nurse from time to
time, and growing with marvellous rapidity on the inexhaustible
nourishment which his mother's milk supplied.

Month followed month, as the night dragged slowly on toward spring and
dawn; and still the mother slept, growing thinner day by day; and still
the cub slept, and grew, and slept, day by day waxing fatter, and
larger, and stronger for the great and terrible battle of life which
awaited him beyond the threshold of the snow.

Except for the vast alternations of storm and calm, of starlight and
auroral radiance, there was nothing to happen in that empty and frozen
world. Such life as dared the cold and dark in those regions kept along
the edges of the sea, where the great waters kept air-holes open through
the incumbent ice. Thither frequented the walrus and the seals, and
there hunted stealthily the savage old he-bears, who were too restless
to yield themselves to the long winter sleep. But the wise mother had
wandered far into the inland solitudes before retiring for her winter of
sleep and motherhood. Over the place of that safe sleep and secret
motherhood no live thing passed, all winter long,--save once or twice a
small white fox, who sniffed cautiously at a faint, menacing scent which
stole up through the hard snow, and once or twice the wide, soundless
wings of a great white Arctic owl, winnowing southward to find the
vanished ptarmigan.

Late and lagging came the beginnings of the dawn,--and then, much later,
when dawn had grown into the long day, the beginnings of the Arctic
spring. Something called to the heart of the old she-bear, and she heard
in the deep of her lair. Bursting through the softening and decaying
snow, she led her sturdy cub forth into the white outer solitudes, and
turned her steps eastward toward the seashore. She was gaunt,
loose-pelted, and unspeakably hungry; but she went slowly