hat year that no storms came to shatter and eat away the
ice-fields along their outer edges. Only the tides and the slow assault
of the sun did their work; and presently a vast area of unbroken ice
parted from the land and went drifting southward in the grip of the
polar current.

For days the young bear was quite unaware of this accident. The
ice-field was too vast and too solid for its motion to convey any
warning. The sea-birds, of course, knew all about it; and in a few days
they disappeared, requiring solid ground for their nesting business. As
for the seals, if they knew they didn't care, holding the ice safer for
their domestic arrangements than the perilous and hostile shore. The
young bear found good hunting. No storms came to vex him. And the warmth
of summer fairly rushed to meet him. For several weeks he was altogether
content.

Meanwhile the sun and the sea were making inroads upon the strength of
the ice-field. One day when the bear was prowling along its edges, a
mass of perhaps a quarter-acre in area broke off, lurching on the long
swell. Astonished and a little alarmed, the bear hurried across, swam
the narrow but rapidly widening strait, and clambered out upon the main
field. The incident in some way stirred up a latent instinct, and he
became uneasy. Setting his pace northward and landward, he stalked
straight ahead for hours,--and where he expected a familiar ridge of
rocks he came upon open sea. Much disturbed, he kept on his vain search
for land, forgetting to eat, and soon had circumnavigated his voyaging
domain. There was no land anywhere to swim to. There was nothing to be
done but accept the situation with such composure as he could command.
The seals were still with him, and he was not compelled to go hungry.

Then came a storm, with blinding flurries of snow out of the north, and
huge waves piling upon the weakened ice; and the field began to break
up. The seals fled away from the turmoil. Frantic with terror, the bear
was again and again overwhelmed among the warring floes, and only by
sheer miracle of good luck escaped being crushed. Clever swimmer that he
was, again and again he succeeded in crawling out upon a larger floe,
ploughing its way more steadily through the tumult. But every such
refuge went to pieces after a time, crumbling into chaos under the
shocks of pounding wave and battering ice. At last, and not too soon,
when his young courage was almost worn out and his young strengt