's throat,
and had him in his arms when Johnny came up.

The next thing was to skin the bear, and this the boys expected to
find as hard work as ever even Johnny had done; but, fortunately, the
bear had been so surprised at Tommy's courage and skill in aiming that
when the bullet hit him he had almost jumped out of his skin. So,
after they had worked a little while, the skin came off quite easily.
What surprised Johnny was that it was all tanned, but Tommy had always
rather thought that bears wore their skin tanned on the inside and
lined, too. The next thing was to have a dinner of bear-meat, for, as
Tommy well remembered, all bear-hunters ate bear-steaks. They were
about to go down to the shore to hunt along for driftwood, when, their
eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, they found a pile of wood in
the corner of the cave, which satisfied them that at some time in the
past this cave had been used by robbers or pirates, who probably had
been driven away by this great bear, or possibly might even have been
eaten up by him.

At first they had some little difficulty in making a fire, as their
matches, warranted water-proof, had all got damp when Tommy fell into
the water--an incident I forgot to mention; but after trying and
trying, the tinder caught from the flint and they quickly had a fine
fire crackling in a corner of the cave, and here they cooked
bear-steak and had the finest dinner they had had since they came into
the Arctic Regions. They were just thinking of going after the dogs
and the sleds, when up came the dogs dragging the sleds behind them,
and without a word, pitched in to make a hearty meal of bear-meat
themselves. It seemed as if they had got a whiff of the fresh steak
and pulled the sleds loose from the ice points to which they were
fastened. They were not, however, allowed to eat in any peace until
they had all recognized that Sate was the hero of this bear fight, for
he gave himself as many airs as though he had not only got the bear,
but had shot and skinned it.

It was at this moment that the Eskimo guide came back, jabbering with
delight, and with his white teeth shining, just as if he had been as
brave as Sate. At first, Tommy and Johnny were inclined to be very
cold to him and pointed their fingers at him as a coward, but when he
said he had only one arrow left and had wanted that to get a sealskin
coat for Tommy's mother, and, as he had the sealskin coat, they could
not contradict him,