Soon after taking our third whale, we saw our first polar bears—two of them on a narrow of ice. When the brig was within fifty yards of them the mate got out his rifle and began blazing away. His first shot struck one of the bears in the leg. The animal wheeled and snapped at the wound. The second shot stretched it out dead. The second bear was hit somewhere in the body and, into the sea, it struck out on a three-mile swim for the main ice pack. It swam with head and shoulders out, the water like a high-power launch and leaving a creaming wake behind. Moving so swiftly across the brig's course, it made a difficult target.
"I'm going down after that fellow," said Mr. Winchester.
He called a boat's crew and lowered, taking his place in the bow with his rifle, while Long John sat at the tiller. He had got only a short distance from the ship when Captain Shorey ordered Gabriel after him.
" that bear may be a bigger job than he thinks," he said. "Lower a boat, Mr. Gabriel, and lend a hand. It may be needed."
In a few minutes Gabriel was heading after the mate's boat. Neither boat sail. With four men at the sweeps, it was as much as the boats could do to gain on the . If the bear was not making fifteen miles an hour, I'm no judge.
Mr. Winchester kept away, his bullets knocking up water all around the animal. One ball struck the bear in the back. That the animal to change its tactics. It quit running away and turned and made directly for its enemies.
"Avast rowing," sang out the mate.
The men peaked their , turned on the , and had their first chance to watch developments, which came thick and fast. Rabid ferocity, blind fury, and deadly menace were in every line of that big white head shooting across the water toward them. The boat sat on a dancing sea. The mate's rifle cracked repeatedly. The bullets peppered the sea, sending up little of water all about the bear. But the beast did not notice them, never tried to , never aside—just kept rushing for the boat with the directness of an arrow.
It was a time of keen excitement for the men in the boat. They kept glancing with an "Oh, that Blücher or night would come" expression toward Gabriel's boat, which was doing all that oars could do to get into the , Big Foot Louis all the while in the bow with ready. The bobbing of his boat disconcerted the mate's aim. Though he was a crack shot, as he had often proved among the okchugs, I never saw him shoot so badly. But he kept banging away, and when the bear was within fifteen or twenty yards he got home a ball in its shoulder. The beast into the air, and clawing at the sea, then rushed again for the boat like a white . It into the boat bows-on, stuck one paw over the gunwale, and with a snarling roar and a frothing snap of , leaped up and tried to climb aboard.
Just at this critical instant Gabriel's boat came into action with a port helm. Louis drove a harpoon into the beast behind the shoulder—drove it up to the haft, so that the spear-head burst out on the other side. At the same moment the mate stuck the of his rifle almost down the bear's throat and fired. The great brute fell back into the water, clawed and plunged and roared and clashed its teeth and so, in a whirlwind of impotent fury, died.
For a moment it lay limp and still among the lapping waves, then slowly began to sink. But Louis held it up with the harpoon line and the animal was towed back to the brig. It measured over seven feet in length and weighed 1,700 pounds—a powerful, gaunt old giant, every inch bone and sinew. Mr. Winchester the other bear from the ice floe. It was smaller. The were stripped off and the carcasses thrown overboard. The skins were in good condition, despite the earliness of the season. They were stretched on frames fashioned by the cooper, and tanned.
A week or so later we sighted a bear on an ice floe making a meal off a seal it had killed. It was late in the afternoon and one had to look twice before being able to make out its white body against the background of snow-covered ice. When the brig sailed within seventy-five yards the bear raised its head for a moment, took a at the , didn't seem interested, and went on eating.
Resting his rifle on the and taking careful aim, Mr. Winchester opened fire. The pattering of the bullets ............