but graciously gave him, in exchange for the coat,
the bear-meat which the dogs had not eaten.

Having packed everything on the sled carefully, with the sealskin coat
on top of the pack and the bear's fur on top of that, and having bid
their Eskimo friend good-by, they turned their backs on the North Pole
and struck out for home.

They had hardly started, however, when the sound of sleigh-bells
reached them, coming from far over the snow, and before they could
tell where it was, who should appear, sailing along over the
ice-peaks, but Santa Claus himself, in his own sleigh, all packed with
Christmas things, his eight reindeer shining in the moonlight and his
bells jingling merrily. Such a shout as he gave when he found that
they had actually got the bear and had the robe to show for it! It did
them good; and both Tommy and Johnny vied with each other in telling
what the other had done. Santa Claus was so pleased that he made them
both get in his sleigh to tell him about it. He let Sate get in too,
and snuggle down right at their feet. Johnny's box-sled he hitched on
behind. The dogs were turned loose. At first Tommy feared they might
get lost, but Santa Claus said they would soon find their way home.

"In fact," he said with a wink, "you have not been so far away as you
think. Now tell me all about it," he said. So Tommy began to tell him,
beginning at the very beginning when Johnny took him on his sled. But
he had only got as far as the sofa, when he fell asleep, and he never
knew how he got back home. When he waked up he was in bed.

* * * * *

He never could recall exactly what happened. Afterward he recalled
Santa Claus saying to him, "You must show me where Johnny lives, for
I'm afraid I forgot him last Christmas." Then he remembered that once
he heard Santa Claus calling to him in a whisper, "Tommy Trot, Tommy
Trot," and though he was very sleepy he raised himself up to find
Santa Claus standing up in the sled in Johnny's backyard, with Johnny
fast asleep in his arms; and that Santa Claus said to him, "I want to
put Johnny in bed without waking him up, and I want you to follow me,
and put these things which I have piled up here on the sled you made
for him, in his stocking by the fire." He remembered that at a whistle
to the deer they sprang with a bound to the roof, the sled sailing
behind them; but how he got down he never could recall, and he never
knew how he got