other side toward the spot where
the calves were lying. The wind blew softly from them, her padded feet
made no sound, and she kept herself completely out of sight. Peering
warily from behind a tilted ice-cake, she saw that one of the cows had
crawled out of the water and lain down beside its calf for a noonday
doze. Then she drew her head back, and continued her careful stalking by
nose and ear alone.

At last she found herself within rushing distance. Not thirty yards away
she could hear the loud breathing of the drowsy cow on the ice, the
splashing of the one in the water. Turning upon the cub, she made him
understand that he was to stay where he was till she was ready for him.
Then gathering all the force of her muscles till she was like a great
bow bent, she shot forth from her place of hiding and rushed upon the
sleepers.

As the white shape of doom came down upon them without warning, the cow
and one calf awoke in intuitive panic and with astonishing and
instantaneous agility rolled off into the water. But the other calf was
not in time. One sprawling struggle it made toward safety, and gave
utterance to one hoarse bleat of despair, as if it knew that fate had
overtaken it. Then a heavy stroke broke its neck; and as its clumsy legs
spread out limp and unstrung upon the ice the bear clutched it and
started to drag it back from the water's edge.

At this moment she was aware of a huge lumbering bulk crawling up upon
the ice behind her. She took it for granted it was the dead calf's
mother, and paid no heed. Walrus cows she despised as antagonists,
though as game she held them in high consideration. She would attend to
this one in a moment; and then her larder would be amply stocked for
days.

An instant later, however, if she had deigned to look back, she would
have seen a gigantic gray and brown, warty-skinned bulk, surmounted by a
hideous face and grim, perpendicular tusks, rearing itself on huge
flippers just behind her. The cub, peering from his hiding-place, saw
the peril but did not comprehend it. The next moment the bulk fell
forward, crushing the bear's hind-quarters to the ice, while those long
tusks, which, fortunately for her, had failed to strike directly, tore a
great red gash across her right shoulder.

With a grunting squeal of rage and pain the bear writhed herself free of
the dripping mass of her assailant, and turned upon him madly. Blow
after blow she struck with that terrible fore paw of h