ers, armed with
claws like steel chisels. But the hide of the giant walrus was like many
thicknesses of seasoned leather for toughness; and though she drew blood
in streams at every tearing stroke, she inflicted no disabling wound.
His little, deep eyes red with fury, the bull rearing himself on his
flippers and lunging forward with awkward but irresistible force, like a
toppling mountain, seeking to crush his enemy and at the same time catch
her under the terrific downward thrust of his tusks. As he fought he
bellowed hoarsely, and panted with great windy, wheezy breaths, while
the walrus cows swam slowly up and down by the edge of the ice, watching
the struggle with their small, impassive eyes.

[Illustration: "SHE LED HIM FARTHER AND FARTHER ACROSS THE ICE."]

The old bear was lame and aching from that first crushing assault, and
her hind-quarters felt almost useless. Nevertheless she was much too
active for her clumsy adversary to succeed in catching her again at a
disadvantage. As she yielded ground before his blundering charges she
led him farther and farther across the ice, farther and farther from the
element wherein he was at home and invincible. Had she been herself
unhurt she would eventually have vanquished his ill-directed valour,
wearing him out and at last reaching his throat. But now she found
herself wearing out, with loss of blood and the anguish of her bruised
hind-quarters. As soon as she realized that her strength was failing,
and that presently she might fail to avoid one of her enemy's great
sprawling rushes, she was seized with fear. What would become of the cub
if she were killed? She wheeled swiftly, ran to where the cub stood
waiting and whimpering, nosed him solicitously, and led him away through
the blue and sparkling hummocks.

After this misadventure the mother bear did no more hunting for a week
or two, but kept inland among the sunny valleys, and nursed her wounds,
and fed on the young roots and tender herbage which sprouted hurriedly
wherever the snow left bare a patch of earth. On such clean and
blood-cooling diet her hurts speedily healed. Then with renewed vigour
and a whetted craving for red flesh-food, she went back to her keen
hunting of the seals. But the walruses she haughtily ignored.

The Arctic summer, meanwhile, with its perpetual sun, poured down upon
the world in swift, delicious heat; and the desolate world began to
laugh, with vivid greenery about the bubbling sources