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Title: Kalak of the Ice
Author: Kjelgaard, James Arthur (1910-1959)
Author [author biography]: Anonymous
Date of first publication: 1949
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Holiday House, 1949
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 10 November 2011
Date last updated: 10 November 2011
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #882

This ebook was produced by David T. Jones, Ross Cooling
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdp.net

This ebook omits the illustrations by Bob Kuhn






  KALAK OF THE ICE




  _Jim Kjelgaard_

  KALAK
  OF THE ICE

  ILLUSTRATED BY BOB KUHN
  HOLIDAY HOUSE, NEW YORK




  _By the Same Author_

  BIG RED
  SNOW DOG
  REBEL SIEGE
  FOREST PATROL
  BUCKSKIN BRIGADE



  Copyright, 1949, by Jim Kjelgaard
  Printed in U. S. A. by H. Wolff Book Mfg. Co.




  CONTENTS


     I _The Bay of Seals_        9
    II _Hungry Village_         26
   III _The Old Whale_          50
    IV _The Mist Bear_          61
     V _Blood on the Ice_       84
    VI _The Devil Driver_      109
   VII _Den in the Snow_       118
  VIII _First Lessons_         128
    IX _Flight from Danger_    142
     X _The Walrus Herd_       152
    XI _Agtuk the Hunter_      167
   XII _The Last Meeting_      183




  KALAK OF THE ICE




  _Chapter I_

  THE BAY OF SEALS


The wind, blowing in from the sea, rippled the water where pack and
shore ice parted. From the air, the open water resembled an irregular
river in the ice.

A lone white gull hovered over the open lead, and looked with bright
eyes at the water below. He banked, and flew slowly up the lead with
bent head. The gull squawked querulously, crossed the lead, and reversed
his direction.

Suddenly the gull planed down toward the open water. Then, within inches
of the surface, he flapped upward again. From the height at which he
had flown, a floating chip of ice had looked like a dead fish. Not
often was the gull guilty of such error. But now he could afford to miss
no opportunity to get food. His last meal, a few shrimp, had been eaten
twenty hours ago. Desperate hunger prodded the bird.

The gull wheeled again, and patiently started back up that side of the
lead which he had already explored. Suddenly he dived, hovered for a
second over the water, and snatched and gulped a small fish that floated
belly-up. The gull came to rest on an ice hummock, folded his wings, and
moved his bill as though he were still savoring the tiny fish. The
morsel had merely dulled the sharpest edge of the gull's appetite, but
that was something.

Rested, the gull took wing and flew swiftly out over the ice pack, head
bent as he scanned the ice beneath him. His objective was another open
lead, where shrimp might come to the surface or where he might find
another dead fish. Suddenly the gull wheeled and swung back over the
ice. So perfectly did the animals below him blend with their
surroundings that he had almost passed without seeing them.

He had to look sharply when he returned, but now he could see the two
polar bears on the pack ice. The gull settled on an ice hummock a few
yards from them, and folded his wings. He knew now that he would eat.
Sooner or later the bears would make a kill.

The gull waited patiently.

    *    *    *    *    *

Kalak, the she polar bear, and her yearling cub had been out on the
pack. Living on the ice, sleeping there when they were tired, eating the
seals that appeared wherever there was an open lead, they had not been
near land since the long winter night lifted and the sun shone once
more. But now, with the approach of summer, they were ranging back
toward land.

As they approached the shore, Kalak was cautious and fretful, quartering
to catch in her nostrils any stray gust that might bring a message from
land. However, the wind carried no evidence of either food or danger.

The bear saw the gull come down, but paid no attention to it. Usually,
in summer, there were one or more gulls about to feed on the remains of
her kills. Kalak did not mind as long as the gulls were not impudent and
did not try to feed while she and the cub were eating. Her present
problem, like the gull's, was to find something to eat.

Yesterday, far out on the ice, Kalak and the cub had fed on a fat seal.
Then they had lain down to sleep before travelling on under the light of
the midnight sun. A few hours ago they had started to hunt again, and
now were very hungry.

The cub was fretful, but Kalak had been hungry before. She knew that if
she kept travelling, sooner or later she would find something to eat.
Frequently, in her previous experience, she had run across places where,
because a strong current had swept the shrimp away or there was no
current to bring them in, there were no shrimp. And she knew that the
seals upon which she lived were not to be found where there was not an
abundance of shrimp or fish for them to eat.

Kalak and the cub swam the open lead and climbed out on the short ice.
Sometimes dead whales--either small white whales or the mighty
bowheads--washed up on shore and furnished food in plenty. Kalak strode
on, head extended and nostrils flaring to catch any scent that might
rise. But nothing had travelled here recently enough to leave a scent.

The cub, growing more and more irritable as hunger pinched, padded up
beside Kalak and grunted.

The mother bear swung her head to bunt the cub and knock him sprawling.
She, too, had become irritable. Hunger had not made her so; she had just
wearied of the cub's complaining. Then, too, the wind from the sea had
lulled, and with no wind to brush the ice and carry its cold touch to
the shore, all the heat generated by a constantly shining sun had become
oppressive.

Kalak turned again to vent her displeasure on the cub. Turning so
hastily that he almost somersaulted backward, the cub ran a few yards
and stood looking over his shoulder to see what was going to happen
next. Kalak grunted sourly, and turned back to the sea. The cub followed
at a safe distance.

Their hindquarters submerged, swimming only with their front paws, they
surged back across the open lead and climbed out among the broken
hummocks and ridges on the pack ice. As the bears threaded their expert
way among them, the gull took flight and flew in slow circles high above
them.

Kalak and the cub came to open water. The wind had increased, and before
them waves rolled and fell back in whitecaps. There was a sudden
shuddering crack as the chunk of ice on which the bears stood broke off
and, pushed by the wind, started toward the dimly seen ice pack on the
far side of the open water. For a while the bears rode their raft. Then
they slipped easily into the water and started swimming. In a few
minutes the drifting ice cake was left far behind.

When they reached the far side, Kalak climbed out on the pack ice and
waited for the cub to join her. As he did so, the eddying wind brought
the faint scent of basking seals. The cub, too, caught the scent and
padded eagerly forward, whining softly. Kalak let him go. In the near
future he would have to hunt for himself, and earn his own way in this
land of ice, just as she always had. He must learn to hunt by hunting.

After he had taken the lead, Kalak followed him quietly. Her big padded
paws made no noise on the ice; she was careful to keep away from
hummocks and ridges from which ice might break and alarm the seal. She
watched the cub's progress critically.

The scent of open water came from just ahead, and with it was mingled
the distinct odor of a near-by seal. The cub sank down, flattening
himself on the ice and pushing noiselessly forward with groping hind
feet. Kalak crawled behind him, around one last hummock, and saw the
seal sunning himself almost at the very edge of a wide lead. Kalak
stopped, but the cub went on, all his eager interest centered on the
prey he was trying to stalk.

The seal raised its head to look about. The cub stopped, freezing where
he was. The seal lowered his head. When it did so, the cub pushed
himself forward.

Then the cub let anxiety overcome judgment. Rather than stop when the
seal raised its head again, he continued his stalk. Although almost
invisible against the ice, so well did his coat blend with it, he was
still seen by the experienced seal. For a bare second the seal stared at
the moving white object. Then, as though he were on a greased chute, the
seal slid into the water and dived under the protecting ice.

The disgust she felt evident in every line of her body, Kalak rose and
strode to the still-crouched cub. She raised an immense front paw, and
delivered a blow that sent the cub skidding across the ice. Kalak did
not look back, but this time she led while the cub followed meekly.

The bear's nose soon told her that there were more seals ahead. She
stopped, flattened on the ice, and pushed herself around an ice hummock.
Twenty feet away, down an icy incline, there was another open lead. On
the far side, near enough to the water so that it could slide instantly
to safety, another seal basked in the sun.

Kalak backed carefully behind the hummock, and crawled on a line
parallel with the lead, until she was a hundred yards from a point
opposite the seal. When she started toward the water again, Kalak
grunted meaningly. The chastised cub remained where he was.

Slowly, with infinite patience, the mother bear worked her way toward
the lead, her eyes on the seal. Every time it raised its head, or even
stirred, Kalak froze where she was. When she finally reached the water,
she slid her great bulk into it so quietly that scarcely a spreading
ripple revealed her presence. With only her nose protruding, she swam
slowly toward the seal. The cub and the circling gull saw the basking
animal raise its head and stay alert. Kalak, the most expert of hunters,
had made no noise, but still the seal sensed danger. It slid toward the
water.

But when the seal reached it, Kalak was there. She had marked the place
exactly, and received the two-hundred-pound seal squarely in her jaws.
Clinging to the ice with her front paws, she clamped her teeth tightly
until the seal stopped thrashing.

As easily as a terrier carries a rat, Kalak carried her prey out on the
ice. The eager cub rose, ran to the water, scrambled in, and swam
across. There on the bleak ice Kalak and her cub feasted on the hapless
seal's rich blubber. Surfeited, they sought a near-by hummock and lay
down to sleep beside it.

The hungry gull swooped down beside the remains of the seal.

Four hours later, Kalak and her cub arose, yawning and stretching.
Propped up on her front paws, like an immense dog, Kalak read the
stories the wind brought to her. Then side by side, the bears started
off across the pack ice.

They swam leads where they found them, drank from fresh-water lakes
formed where old salt ice had freshened and melted and, when they wanted
to rest, lay in the shaded portions of ice hummocks or ridges.

The next day, Kalak caught another seal. There was not an abundance of
them here, but there were more than there had been in the coastal area
patrolled by the lonely gull. Nearly every lead held a few shrimp and,
beneath the ice, there were fish ranging in size from small herring to
great cod.

Kalak's route kept her almost along the line where the pack ice ground
against the frozen shore. It was a rugged journey which in turn led over
smooth ice, across old ice whose humps and ridges had melted until it
resembled a frozen prairie, over ice still humped in sixty-foot ridges
and crests, and across open sea.

The two polar bears took all of it in their stride, catching seals where
they needed them and resting when rest was called for. They did not
swerve from their path, even when the ice about them churned and broke,
and heaped itself in still higher ridges. This was Kalak's country; she
was as much at home in it as any land beast can be in its own domain.
She knew and understood the ice pack as well as the moose knows and
understands his forest, or the bighorn his crags.

The difference between the sea ice and the land lay in the fact that the
ice was an ever-changing world. There were no paths which might be the
same next year or even next day. The pack always moved and, in moving,
opened new water where none had been or closed leads that were open.
Kalak found her way because of a deep-seated intelligence in her brain
and a compass in her nose. So she took her cub where she willed and
always found the best path to go there.

On their third day of travel, Kalak stopped suddenly. She inched behind
a hummock, and stood as still as the ice beside her. The cub, coming up
behind her, stopped too. Every tiny nerve in Kalak's immense body was
alert as she sought a repetition of the thing that had halted her in her
tracks.

It came again. From across the ice, in the direction of the shore, there
floated the far-off barking of a dog. The dog barked still again, and
another joined in. The cub moved slightly, crumbling the ice beneath
him. Kalak whirled furiously upon him, and the cub backed to the hummock
and stood still.

Kalak waited as only a wild creature could wait, one who had learned the
certain value of patience and caution. Although her ears had warned her
first, she was waiting for the full knowledge that only her nose could
supply. But the wind was keening in from the sea, in the wrong
direction. Neither she nor the cub moved a muscle.

Then the wind eddied, and momentarily came rolling back from shore. In
that moment Kalak learned all that she wished to know.

It was a familiar odor, that of the Endorah Eskimo village. Mingled with
the scent of humans was that of many dogs, but not as many as there had
been the last time Kalak had come within scenting distance of the
village. There was also the odor of skin tents, the stench that always
gathers around a camp, the rich smell of seal oil, and the smell of
driftwood fires. The big ice bear stood perfectly still, making up her
mind what to do. She was afraid.

It was not fear for herself. Steel-muscled and sinewed, equipped with
pile-driver paws and jaws that were capable of breaking a seal's back
with one bite, she knew and understood her own strength and hardihood.
She was experienced and cunning, or else she would have died long ago.
The arctic shores and the polar pack were no place for weaklings. Kalak
had never been afraid for herself.

But deep within her lay something that was entirely separate from
savagery and brute force. She must hunt, and fight, and run if need be,
so that her young might survive. That was irresistible instinct, but an
instinct sharpened in her case by bitter memories. Kalak had a great
capacity for loving her cub, and was worried because she knew of the
many dangers that could strike down her young.

The first time she had become a mother, young and inexperienced, she had
left her two cubs to go seal hunting. She had not remained away for
long, but when she returned the cubs were gone, blood stained the den,
and there was the scent of wolves about. Then she had again borne twin
cubs, and seen them run down by a sputtering launch that was lowered
from the deck of a great ship. Kalak had tried to rescue them, but the
launch was swifter than she and it had drawn rapidly away. For days she
had roamed the sea, furiously striking at anything that lay in her path
and not eating as she sought her kidnapped young. She had never found
them. The next time she had borne only one cub, and had seen him crushed
by a collapsing wall of ice.

Now again she had but one cub upon which she could lavish all her love.
The cub had been at her side for more than a year, and Kalak had kept
him out on the ice pack partly because she knew that hunters from the
Eskimo village seldom ventured that far. She was not afraid of the
hunters, but she was terribly afraid of the harm they might bring to her
cub. She could go back to the ice pack, but hunting would be poor there
at this time of year.

Wheeling, Kalak loped swiftly away from the dangerous scent and led the
cub swiftly out on the ice pack. Coming to a lead, they plunged in and
swam across. The two bears had not eaten for many hours and were hungry.
But despite the protesting whimpers of the cub, Kalak did not stop to
hunt even when the odor of near-by seals was borne to her nostrils.

When, at last, Kalak turned again to face the shore and wait for the
changing wind to bring her the story of what lay there, she found no
taint of man. There was only the clean smell of the pack in the cold
wind that blew into her receptive nostrils. Kalak slowed her pace, and
swung back in the direction she had been travelling when she smelled the
Eskimo village. The cub whimpered again, plaintively, and this time his
mother did not rebuff him. Kalak stopped to hunt.

The next day they came to a great area of open water and stood on the
edge of the pack while they stared across its apparently endless
expanse.

Directly before them, half a hundred yards from the shore, a gam of
bowhead whales floated near the surface and sent their water spouts high
into the air. The cub watched with his head up, eyes and ears alert, and
padded down to the very edge of the ice so he could see better. He
reared himself to his full height. A throaty growl bubbled from his cub
throat as, in every way a polar bear can, he challenged the whales to
come in and fight.

Suddenly the edge of the ice cracked, slid into the sea, and took the
cub with it. He tumbled in headfirst and heels in the air. Then, just as
he was about to strike the water, he straightened himself out and dived
cleanly. The cub surfaced, swam back to the ice, and clawed his way up
onto it. He looked sheepishly at Kalak, then walked back to the ice's
edge, being careful not to go too near, and growled again at the
whales.

Kalak swung along the edge of the ice, and followed it mile after mile.
In late afternoon they came upon creatures that had climbed out of the
sea to the ice. The cub pushed eagerly ahead to look at them. Huge
beasts with long ivory tusks, they were even bigger than Kalak. This
time the cub did not growl, but looked ed questioningly at his mother.
The herd of walrus was too near; if he challenged them to battle they
might accept. The walrus only raised their heads and stared when the
polar bears went by.

In mid-morning of the sixth day they came to the Bay of Seals.

The Bay itself was merely a great indentation in the arctic coast. Shore
ice, accumulated over the years, had crawled far up on the slate rocks
that stretched away from the sea. A strong north wind was blowing and
the restless pack ice ground against the shore. Farther out, the Bay was
solid ice, split at various places by leads of differing widths. Seals
almost without number crowded the edges of the leads, or hunted shrimp
in the open water.

The Bay of Seals was a wild and lonely place. It was a lost world in
itself, a savage and storm-lashed spot that could be visited only by the
hardiest and most daring of arctic hunters. But the shrimp and fish
that swarmed in the open leads or beneath the ice attracted the seals,
and, in summer, many polar bears came to feed on the seals.

From where she stood Kalak saw thirteen of the great ice bears, and the
wind brought her the scent of many more. The cub, dismayed at finding
himself among so many of his kind, crowded close at his mother's heels.

A huge bear with a snake-like head and lean body emerged from the water,
stood beside the lead from which he had climbed, and looked silently at
Kalak and her cub. Kalak lowered her head and bared yellow tushes, while
a rumbling threat issued from her throat. The male bear dived back into
the lead and swam across.

At this display of his mother's invincibility, the cub strode cockily
forward. Kalak walked at his side, missing nothing, particularly aware
of anything that might threaten the cub.

A summer fog began to settle over the Bay. Its curling tendrils slowly
obscured the ice, the shore, and the open leads. The wind died, but the
breezes still carried the scent of those living creatures which were
abroad in the bay. As Kalak strode swiftly forward, the cub remained
close at her heels.

Out of the mist loomed a white presence, a thing that was more sensed
than seen. Kalak did not break her pace, but the cub cringed against her
when he saw the beast that had come. It was a monstrous bear, a creature
bigger than Kalak. This time the cub's mother did not growl when the
bigger bear approached.

Thus, in a blinding mist over the Bay of Seals, Kalak met the
far-ranging mate whom she had not seen since winter last closed over the
ice fields.




  _Chapter II_

  HUNGRY VILLAGE


Agtuk, Chief of the Endorah Eskimos, was very tired. When yesterday's
sun had shone over the ice pack he had started back into the hills to
hunt caribou. Since then he had slept not at all, though Toolah and
Nalee, the only two hunters who had dared travel with him, had lain on a
sunny hill and slumbered. Agtuk was also angry. There were other men
back in the village capable of hunting, but instead of getting out and
searching for game they preferred to sit in the council house and let
Chuesandrin, the devil-driver, tell them why they couldn't get it.

The devil had control, Chuesandrin said, and all the magic he could
muster was of no avail because the devil abode among them in the body of
Agtuk's favorite dog, Natkus. The devil would not depart, nor would game
be plentiful, until Agtuk thrust Chuesandrin's magic knife through
Natkus' heart. And most of the tribe believed it.

Agtuk fingered his own knife. He had never killed any man because he
considered that the killing of men was not right, but he thought that he
would not mind killing Chuesandrin. He knew that the devil-driver had
been smoldering for more than two months, ever since Natkus had entered
his tent and stolen a choice caribou loin that Chuesandrin's wife was
roasting. Agtuk's mouth tightened.

One did not, of course, take even a favorite dog along when one hunted
caribou because dogs frightened them. But before leaving the village
Agtuk had told Chuesandrin that Natkus had best be present when Agtuk
returned. If he were not, Agtuk had said, then Chuesandrin would not be
present for very long either. Natkus was not to go into the cooking
pots, where so many of the village dogs had already gone, nor was he to
be subjected to any of Chuesandrin's devil-driving.

Agtuk had made himself very clear. He did not, he said, believe that
Chuesandrin knew any more about devils than anyone else, or even that
there was a devil. Agtuk had lived for thirty-nine years among the
Endorah. More than once he had seen a scarcity of game, and more than
once, even when there had been no devil-driver to lure it back, the game
had returned. If Chuesandrin cared to put the issue to a test, then
Agtuk would gladly submit. They would see which was the stronger,
Chuesandrin's magic or Agtuk's knife. It was time a decision was
reached.

As Agtuk squatted on the small hill he had climbed, and thought about
these things, he squinted across the treeless country that rolled away
from the hill. There was no game in sight, and Agtuk was worried. If
they did not find meat soon the whole village would starve. As it was,
they had been able to get just enough to maintain strength. Everybody
except the children and the old people were hungry most of the time.

Toolah and Nalee came up beside him, laid their spears and their bows
and arrows on the ground, and stared down the hill. For a moment no one
spoke.

"This is a bad thing," Toolah said.

"It is not good," Agtuk agreed.

"Perhaps," Toolah said thoughtfully, "there really is a devil keeping
the game away. Perhaps if you did as Chuesandrin wishes, and killed
Natkus with his magic knife--"

"Chuesandrin babbles child's talk for children's ears," Agtuk said
sourly.

Toolah did not answer for a moment, and then he said hesitantly,
"Perhaps so."

Agtuk said, still sourly, "Those who wish to eat may put their trust in
devil-drivers or hunting. Those who hunt will eat."

"We have found nothing to hunt," Nalee pointed out.

"That is so," Agtuk agreed, "but we must continue to search. Since we
did not get any caribou we will go out on the ice and try again for
seals. If there are no seals, we will look for something else. I shall
give a spear to both Toolah and Nalee."

The hunters' leathery faces brightened. Aside from being the best and
most skillful hunter, Agtuk was far and away the finest spear-maker in
the tribe. It was no small honor to own one of his spears; only the
greatest hunters had them, and the prospect of one was sufficient to
balance Chuesandrin's devils. Nalee and Toolah nodded agreeably. They
would continue to hunt with Agtuk.

Agtuk rose. "There is no use in staying here and wasting time. We might
as well return to the village and set out on a seal hunt."

They started toward the river where they had left their kayaks. Sweat
beaded their foreheads, for the day was hot. With his knife Agtuk opened
a worn place in the front of his fawn-skin shirt. Ostensibly the move
was calculated to cool his body, but it was also a bold gesture which
Nalee and Toolah did not miss. Anyone who became so reckless with
caribou-skin garments must be sure that he would get more.

As they mounted a hill, overlooking the willow-lined river, Agtuk sank
quickly behind the crest of the rise. Toolah and Nalee, behind him, also
crouched down. Agtuk turned to them.

"There are two bull caribou across the river. We must get them!"

"Let us be on, then," Toolah said eagerly.

Agtuk shook his head.

"We cannot hunt as though there are plenty of caribou if we miss these.
We must plan carefully."

"No hunting plan is certain," Nalee argued.

"This one must be sure," Agtuk said. "You, Toolah, and you, Nalee, go
back to the bottom of the hill and work your way downstream. Be careful
that the caribou do not see you and take fright. When you have come to
the shallow part, wade across the river and go far enough back so that
you are behind the caribou. Then come in, toward the river. If you can,
kill both bulls with arrows. If you cannot, drive them so that they will
enter the river when they flee. I will be waiting by the willows, and
when they are in the water I will try to overtake them in my kayak."

"It is a good plan." Toolah's eyes were filled with admiration.

"A hunter's plan," Nalee agreed. "We go."

The two left, and Agtuk crawled back to the crest of the hill. The two
bulls were still feeding on the other side of the river. While they fed,
Agtuk crawled carefully down the hill. When the caribou ceased feeding
and raised their heads, Agtuk stopped and held himself perfectly
motionless. When the caribou resumed their feeding again, Agtuk crawled
on. He knew that caribou thought nothing was dangerous unless it was in
motion, and they were too far away to smell him.

By slow degrees Agtuk reached the willow-lined river bank, and the kayak
he had hidden there. Now there was nothing to do except wait, but Agtuk
was a hunter born to hunting. He knew well the value of patience and of
doing the right thing at the right time. With his eye Agtuk measured the
distance to the kayak and noted the exact location of the paddle. When
the time came to act, it would need to be swift action. He would have no
time for waste motions.

For an hour, moving only far enough to find the choicest browse, the
caribou fed, undisturbed. Then, both bulls raised their heads suddenly
and glanced behind them. They made a nervous little start, and ran a few
feet. Agtuk saw Nalee rise up and shoot an arrow. But it was hopelessly
far shooting, and the arrow fell short. Both bulls started to run.

Agtuk waited, holding his breath. Instead of coming down to the river,
the caribou were heading upstream, along the bank. Agtuk muttered to
himself. Where was Toolah? If Toolah and Nalee missed, they should at
least be in a position to force the bulls into the river.

One of the caribou stopped, whirled, and dashed directly away from the
river, toward the low hills. Toolah rose out of the grass, with drawn
bow, but his arrow soared over the bull's back. Agtuk muttered again.

Seeing Toolah, the second bull took the opposite direction, raced toward
the river, and plunged in.

Agtuk made no move; if he launched his kayak now he might drive the
caribou back to the opposite bank. With an expert eye he gauged its
progress. The caribou, coming to deep water, stopped splashing and
started to swim strongly. It was almost in the center of the river when
Agtuk pushed his kayak into the water.

He paddled swiftly, sending the frail craft through the water so fast
that a trailing wake curled from its stern. Seeing him, but still intent
upon gaining the shore toward which it had started, the bull swerved
upstream. Agtuk drove his paddle deeper, putting into his strokes all
the strength of his powerful arms. Slowly he closed the gap between
himself and the swimming caribou.

Then, with a rending snap that sounded very loud above the river's
placid murmur, his paddle split. The kayak lost headway.

Agtuk threw his spear. It was a long cast, but expertly done. The spear
soared in a long arc to bite into the swimming bull's flank.

Agtuk began propelling the kayak forward with what remained of the
paddle. He could not go as fast, but the spear had penetrated far enough
to impede the swimming bull seriously. For a moment it continued its
desperate efforts to fight upstream, then quartered across. It had
almost reached the shallows on the side of the river when Agtuk brought
his kayak alongside, and flung himself out of it to land squarely
astride the swimming bull's back.

The bull's head came up and his antlers snapped back toward the man's
ribs. Agtuk wound his left hand in the caribou's hair, crouched as low
as he could get on the bull's back, and brought up his knife with his
right hand. He thrust it down with a mighty stroke that sent the blade
out of sight in the bull's chest. The caribou kicked and thrashed
furiously for a moment, but Agtuk's thrust had been sure. In a moment
the bull was floating quietly.

As soon as Agtuk had thrown himself on the bull, Toolah and Nalee had
started running for the shallow ford across the river. They now came
panting up to where they had left their kayaks, howling with delight.

"A caribou!" Toolah yelled. "A bull falls before Agtuk! There will be
meat in the cooking pots tonight!"

They launched their own kayaks, retrieved Agtuk's, and helped him secure
the bull with a sealskin thong. As they towed it to shore, Toolah drew
his knife, made a slash in the air, held the knife to his lips, and
grinned broadly. "Agtuk the hunter!" he crowed. "Let Chuesandrin's
devils match this!"

They drew the bull up on the bank, and began to dress it.

"The very grandfather of all caribou," Agtuk observed wryly. "Its flesh
all but turns my knife blade."

"It is not the tenderest," Nalee agreed, "but it is meat."

Agtuk sliced the raw liver, gave chunks of it to Toolah and Nalee, and
they all sat down to eat. Finished, although still hungry, Agtuk stared
thoughtfully toward the rolling hills in which the remaining bull had
made good his escape. Then he addressed Toolah and Nalee.

"Take the meat down to the village," he directed. "I stay here."

Toolah looked quizzically at him.

"But why?"

"To hunt the bull we did not get," Agtuk said simply. "The village is in
need."

"You will be honored for getting this one," Toolah objected.

"Honor," Agtuk observed, "is not enough when my people need food. I stay
here."

He picked up an axe, expertly chopped around the dead bull's scalp and
lifted the antlers from it. With his knife he cut a long strip of skin
and tied one end to the antlers. Then he made a loop in the other end
of the thong and slung the antlers over his shoulder. He picked up his
bow and arrows, and the spear that had been taken out of the dead bull.
Toolah and Nalee waited questioningly. Agtuk took a small chunk of meat
for himself and dropped it into his kayak.

"Go!" he urged. "The village is hungry!"

Without looking back he paddled across the river, beached his kayak, and
started out on the trail of the bull that had escaped.

The sun beat mercilessly down and Agtuk sweated profusely. The dangling
antlers butted his thigh, and he shifted them to the other shoulder.
When he had gone half a mile he climbed a hill to look. There was
nothing in sight, but he had not really expected anything; frightened
caribou ran for very long distances before they even stopped to graze.
Agtuk lay down, pillowed his head on a rock, and slept for an hour. Then
he patiently took up the dim trail left by the running bull.

He knew where to go partly because of the bull's faint tracks and partly
because he knew caribou. There were places where they might be expected
to travel and other places which they most certainly would avoid, and
anyone who hoped successfully to hunt must be able to guess what his
game would do. Agtuk pressed on under the never-setting sun.

A single cloud appeared in the sky, and hung ominously there. Other
clouds joined it, and their shadows began to shroud the treeless hills
across which the lone bull had trotted. Agtuk started to run along the
trail.

The desperate village needed all the food it could get, and he dared not
miss this bull if there was a possibility of getting it. However, the
wind that keened in from the sea carried cold with it and the clouds
meant snow. If snow fell there would be no chance to find the lone bull.

When he could run no longer, Agtuk walked until his spent breath was
recovered, then trotted on again. It was the next day when he finally
sighted the caribou, grazing in a valley between two hills.

Agtuk knelt in the grass, unslung the caribou antlers, and used the
thong with which he had carried them to strap the antlers to his back.
Without attempting to conceal himself, he crawled openly down the hill.
The bull saw him, raised its head, and resumed grazing. It did not run
and showed no sign of fear. Agtuk continued his steady crawl, dragging
his bow with one hand. As he came nearer, the caribou stared steadily
at him. Then, its short tail high, the bull came forward. Agtuk stopped,
and nocked an arrow in his bow.

A sudden blast of wind, the beginning of the storm, roared across the
low hills. Blowing from Agtuk to the caribou, it carried man scent to
the bull. The caribou whirled and loped away. As it disappeared over the
rise, snow started to fall.

Wearily, Agtuk turned and started his long homeward journey.

The village, a collection of skin-covered tents, stood on the shore
where the river met the arctic sea. As far out as Agtuk could see, the
flowing river had eaten its way into the pack ice, so there was open sea
in front of the camp. Farther out, where Kalak and her cub had crossed,
the river's ice-cooled water at last flowed ineffectively against more
pack ice.

Agtuk beached his kayak, and strode up the bank to greet the woman who
waited for him there. Larensa, his capable wife, smiled in return.

"You have returned in good time, Agtuk," she said.

"Empty-handed," he replied grimly. "Is all well in the village?"

"Thanks to the hunting skill of Agtuk, there is some meat."

"And Natkus . . . ?"

A big gray dog with a lithe wolf's body tore across the village. He
flung himself upon Agtuk, whimpering and wagging his tail furiously.
Larensa watched understandingly. She lived in a harsh land where the
only possible means of life lay in hunting. It was good to see the
hunter reunited with his dog, for that meant that there would be more
hunting and more food. Larensa smiled.

"Natkus has grieved since you left," she said. "He also chased
Chuesandrin across the village, and I think he would have bitten him had
not Chuesandrin gained the safety of his house."

"Oh," said Agtuk, "and what has the great devil-driver been doing?"

Larensa shook her head dubiously. "He gives all his time to the making
of magic, Agtuk. He has become even more bitter toward Natkus. I think
that the evil things stirring in the devil-driver's mind now extend to
the master of Natkus."

"How does the village think?"

"Some side with you, since Toolah and Nalee brought in the caribou meat.
Some are still afraid of Chuesandrin. I fear there will be bad times."

Agtuk said shortly, "I go to see Chuesandrin."

With Natkus at his heels he strode across the village to the
devil-driver's tent, and went in without announcing his presence.

Chuesandrin, who had blackened his face, was bending over a seal-oil
lamp from which yellow flame rose. Without looking up, the devil-driver
passed his hand over the flame. It turned red, then turned pure white.
Still Chuesandrin did not look up. Agtuk watched calmly.

"You are wasting your talents upon me, Chuesandrin. I know all about the
stones and dust you may gather, that will make a lamp burn almost any
color you wish when you conceal some in the palm of your hand and drop
it in."

Natkus pushed in beside Agtuk, and growled softly. Chuesandrin glanced
up. His eyes were fanatically alight, his voice was a harsh whisper.

"The dog!" he croaked. "The dog in which the devil lives!" He extended a
knife. "Thrust it in the dog now and kill the devil! There will be no
game until you do!"

Agtuk spoke harshly. "I am tired, Chuesandrin, for I have been hunting
while you have been here frightening villagers who are already
frightened enough. I do not mind your making magic, for our people have
always had devil-drivers among them. But I do think it is time you
foresaw the return of game, and thus put heart in the hunters to get out
and work for themselves!"

"There will be no game!" the devil-driver said. "There will be none
until you kill the devil in your dog!"

Agtuk said contemptuously, "I heard that Natkus tried to bite you,
Chuesandrin. It is too bad that he did not succeed, for had Natkus eaten
a good meal of devil-driver I would not have to feed him other meat. I
go now, but I leave you with the hope that you change both your ways and
your devil-driving. There would be enough food for all if enough hunters
looked for it."

With Natkus behind him, Agtuk swung on his heel and left the
devil-driver's tent. Coming toward him were Toolah and Nalee, flanked by
four other men. Toolah spoke happily.

"Nalee and I have been to your lodge, Agtuk. True to your promise,
Larensa gave each of us a hunting spear made by you. Here are others who
are now willing to hunt."

"It is not that we wish to offend Chuesandrin," a stocky hunter said
hesitantly. "It is just that Toolah and Nalee came to no harm by hunting
with you. We will hunt if you will promise to give us spears, too."

Agtuk reflected. If sufficient hunters went out, enough food might be
had. And if he had not sufficient spears to give a weapon to everyone
who helped bring game down, he could make some more. If the magic of
owning a spear made by Agtuk counteracted the magic Chuesandrin brewed
in his devil-driver's tent . . .

"It is good," Agtuk said. "We will hunt, then. And now is the time to
start! Look!"

His glance had strayed out across the open water. Far out, so far that
it was seen only faintly, a spout of water ascended toward the sky and
fell back. The spout appeared again.

"Whale!" Agtuk shouted. "Be quick!"

Agtuk ran to his tent and snatched up his seven-foot whaling harpoon and
his twelve-foot lance. The harpoon had a slate head, to which was
attached a sixty-foot walrus-hide line. On the end of the line were
three floats, each made by inflating the skin of an entire seal.

Carrying his whaling gear, Agtuk ran down to the beach where an oomiak,
a large boat covered with walrus hide, was always ready to launch.
Toolah, Nalee, and the other four hunters appeared, each carrying
similar weapons. They launched the oomiak, caught up paddles, and sent
the big boat skimming lightly over the calm sea. Agtuk, in the bow,
rested his harpoon in the built-in ivory launching crotch.

But the sea upon which the whale had been sighted was now calm and
deserted. The paddlers swung the oomiak and quartered to cover that
section which they had not yet been over. They came to the pack ice, so
far out that no land was visible, and started back.

Suddenly, completely without warning, the whale came up within a few
feet of the oomiak.

It was an old whale, a great forbidding monster more than sixty-five
feet long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail. The whale
moved sluggishly, and sent up another water spout whose spray blew down
over the oomiak from high in the air.

Agtuk hurled his weapon, and saw the harpoon's head bury itself in the
whale's thick hide. As the sluggish monster sounded, the shaft tore
loose from the harpoon's head and floated free. The whaling line played
over the oomiak's edge so fast that a little column of smoke rose, and
the floats followed the sounding whale out of sight.

Toolah passed his harpoon to Agtuk, who rested it in the launching fork
while the hunters waited tensely. A whale was a great creature from
which tons of meat could be cut. If they were able to get this one, then
the village would have plenty of food, and oil and blubber for their
lamps. Agtuk's would be a village of plenty.

The hunters waited for the floats on the whaling line to bring the
monster back to the surface. When he came, another harpoon with more
floats would be hurled. Eventually, with the floats holding him back,
the whale would be unable to submerge. Then he could be dispatched at
close quarters with the razor-sharp lances.

"There he is!"

The eager cry broke from Nalee. Two hundred yards to the left, the
sealskin floats bobbed to the surface. Swinging their oomiak, the
paddlers worked so furiously that the bow of their craft was lifted out
of the water. Agtuk made ready to hurl another harpoon.

Then, as one man, the paddlers ceased paddling and a disappointed groan
arose.

The tough whaling line had broken, and the floats were bobbing freely on
the arctic sea. Agtuk reached out to pick them up on the end of his
lance, and lifted them into the boat without a word.

As they turned back toward shore, Agtuk pondered. When food was scarce
it was bad enough to lose a caribou. Losing a whale, enough food to last
everyone for months, was indeed a crushing blow. But that was not all.
Chuesandrin wished to be master of the village. If he could convince the
villagers that devils had anything to do with losing the whale, now was
an excellent chance for him to depose Agtuk.

When the oomiak came near, most of the waiting villagers who had crowded
the shore to see what the hunters would bring drifted dejectedly back
into the village. Only a small group of women, the wives of the hunters
who had gone out, remained.

"Ill fortune?" Larensa asked.

"The line broke," Agtuk grunted, as he stepped out of the oomiak.

"Chuesandrin said he knew that you would not get it!" one of the wives
said bitterly. "He said the devil in Natkus would prevent your getting
anything as great as a whale!"

For a moment Agtuk stood thoughtfully, digesting this information. It
was as he had feared. Suddenly he swung on Nalee.

"Tell everyone," he directed, "that I wish to address the village."

Agtuk took his place before the assembled men, women, and children. Even
the dogs gathered on the outskirts of the crowd, sensing the excitement.
Natkus came to stand by his master's side.

Agtuk looked at Chuesandrin, glowering by himself, and began to speak.

"All of us are hungry and there is not enough food. There will not be
enough here. Toolah, Nalee, and I hunted long and hard for one caribou.
We must have more. Since the game will not come to us, we must go to the
game. We must move."

"Madness!" croaked Chuesandrin. "He talks madness! The devil is keeping
the game away, the devil in Agtuk's dog."

Agtuk glanced at Chuesandrin, then continued. "Will you listen to the
devil-driver or to a hunter? The game has not disappeared as sea fog
melts away! It is merely elsewhere. We must go there. I know a place
where there is always game. Let us move to the Bay of Seals!"

"Great madness!" Chuesandrin shrieked. "He knows not whereof he speaks!
The Bay of Seals is the abode of many terrible devils!"

"Chuesandrin!" Agtuk replied evenly, "I challenge your power! If you
have, as you say you have, any control over devils, then show it now!
Have your devils strike me!"

There was a moment of awed silence, while all eyes turned toward
Chuesandrin. "If I summoned a devil, Agtuk," he replied, "he would not
strike only you. He would strike all."

"Then let him strike all!"

"No! No!" cried several voices.

"You can't!" Agtuk said contemptuously. "What hunters will go with me to
the Bay of Seals? Who does not fear?"

Larensa pushed her way through the crowd.

"I will go!" she said clearly. "I am only a woman, but I will go with
Agtuk! Will the men of the Endorah dare go where a woman does?"

"I'll go," Nalee called.

"And I," said Toolah. "With my own eyes I saw Agtuk attack a swimming
caribou bull and kill it with his knife. I will follow a hunter who can
do that!"

"Who else?" Agtuk called. "Who wishes to go with Agtuk and feast, and
who prefers to stay with Chuesandrin and starve?"

There was muttering among the villagers as those who wanted to go with
Agtuk and those who lived in fear of Chuesandrin's devils argued among
themselves. Agtuk waited. Most of the men had swung to his side. Those
who had not would follow. Even Chuesandrin would rather sink his teeth
into fat seal blubber than remain here and starve. Agtuk had won.

"You, Toolah and Nalee," he ordered, "select five good men to go with
us. We shall set out at once, taking our hunting gear and a dog for each
man. The rest will follow, and set up our village on the shore of the
Bay of Seals."




  _Chapter III_

  THE OLD WHALE


The whale had been unaware of the oomiak until Agtuk's harpoon bit into
his side.

The whale sounded immediately, fighting the floats which dragged behind
him. He was alarmed, but not terrified. Twenty times during the more
than hundred years he had prowled the sea he had felt the sting of
harpoons, and a dozen heads were still imbedded in his big body.

When the whale reached deeper water he began to tire. The harpoon line
strained behind him, the floats exerting more and more pressure as he

went deeper. At the bottom the whale turned, beginning to yield to the
imperative tug of the sealskin floats. As he turned, the trailing line
followed him about a rock abutment buried deep in the sea. Ground for
centuries by silt-laden water, the rock's corner was razor-sharp; it cut
the harpoon line.

Freed of the dragging floats, the whale spurted forward into still
deeper water. He was under the ice now, and the water was black, but
still the whale continued to dive. He plumbed the very depths of the
ocean, where the water pressure was so intense that a man in a diving
suit would have been crushed like an egg shell.

The whale swam swiftly on, and even in the black water, far beneath the
ice, he knew where he was. This was an old highway, one whose bends and
turns he knew well. The whale was heading toward a place far out in the
pack ice where he knew there would be much open water. When he reached
it, he ascended to breathe. The imbedded harpoon was only a small ache
in his great length, but the whale was very tired. He was old, and had
come a long way from the southerly waters where he had passed the
winter.

When he moved again he travelled slowly, and frequently turned to go
back along the way he followed. He was aimless and restless.

The whale dived. Clearly in the depths to which he had descended he saw
a gam of bowhead whales go past, but did not attempt to join them. They
meant nothing to him. He was like a very old man meeting a crowd of
youngsters, in whose lives and ways he had no part nor interest.

The whale went down to depths where there was so much tiny life in the
ocean that the water took its very color from the minute sea
crustaceans. With his cavernous mouth wide open, he swam at full speed
through the school of little sea creatures. He closed his mouth, and
when he lifted his tongue water drained out between the rows of
bone-like structure which formed a miniature forest within the whale's
head. The myriad of creatures which the whale had taken caught on the
hair-like growth with which the baleen, or whale bone, was covered.

The whale swallowed his food, forcing it down a throat so small that a
fish as large as a herring would have passed through only with
difficulty, and turned to swim back into the school of tiny animals. He
fed again and again, until his appetite was satisfied. No longer hungry,
the whale lolled for a while in the ocean's depths.

He swerved, turning his colossal body like a great torpedo, and rose
slowly toward the surface. The black water became gray, then light,
until finally the sun penetrated it. The whale broke the surface,
levelled, and expelled the spent air from his lungs. It shot high into
the air, a mist-like spume, and wafted away. The whale drew clean air
through his nostrils, two apertures on top of his head. When he
continued his journey, he stayed on the surface.

He swam slowly past a herd of walrus that were playing in the water. On
the edge of the ice he saw a polar bear that looked curiously at him.
But the whale was interested in none of these creatures.

There had been a time when it became sheer joy to follow these sea
roads, to be part of a herd of whales whose backs cut the water cleanly
as they played and raced. At that time the whale had been young, and
filled with life. Now he was old and lonely. He still swam north when
the water opened, and south when it closed, because he had been doing it
for years and ingrained habit was too powerful to break now.

But there was no longer any zest in exploring the sea lanes, for there
were no longer old companions with whom he could swim. Of the great herd
which had once travelled with him, all except the old whale had fallen
to Eskimo hunters or to other hazards of the sea. Other herds of whales
still swam north, but the old whale wanted no part of them.

He travelled for three days, eating as he went. He came to a deep bay
which he knew well, and fed on the small life in its depths. He came up
to breathe, sounded again, and came up a second time.

His tail stirred and his flukes moved slightly as he watched the things
that were bearing down upon him. He was alert, but not frightened. Age
and experience had taught him much, and the old whale knew that he could
not run away from this danger.

There were six in the herd of orcas, or killer whales, bearing down upon
him. No one of the six was a third of the old whale's length or a tenth
of his weight, but they were agile, savage things armed with rows of
slashing teeth that would attack anything. Like sharks, their appetites
were never satisfied; an orca might kill a dozen seals before it stopped
hunting.

The six swam abreast, their big back fins cutting the water, and bore
down upon the old whale like wolves charging an embattled caribou bull.
The whale turned to face them. When they did not swerve, he smashed
forward like a sixty-five-foot battering ram.

The orcas anticipated his move, and streamed smoothly past, three on
either side. Flanking the old whale, they closed in for the attack. An
orca slashed like a wolf at the whale's lips and retreated. Another
darted in, and another, each attacking the old whale's vulnerable lips.

The whale sounded, diving deep into the water and swimming as fast as he
could go. But he did not flee with the blind terror of a younger animal.
This whale was an experienced battler. Like an old wolf-stricken moose,
he put his faith in strategy.

Sea wolves that they were, the bloodthirsty orcas streamed after him.

The whale went down and down. He knew this part of the sea as well as he
knew all the rest. The pack ice here, because of constant currents and
winds, was always in motion. Ice coming in from the sea ground at the
pack, and when it could not force a way through it fought its way to the
top. Heaped and twisted, this ice was more than a hundred and fifty feet
thick, its bottom a maze of caverns and tunnels that varied from a few
feet to several dozen yards in width. With the attacking orcas in close
pursuit, the whale swam into such a tunnel.

He stopped suddenly. The whale had known, as the orcas had not, that he
would find a narrow place in the winding tunnel. But the orcas did not
care. Maddened now by the streams of blood that flowed from the whale,
they pushed on relentlessly. They had never yet found anything they
feared or anything that would not flee from them. Like smoothly cast
spears they glided in to the attack.

The whale thrashed his flukes and flipped his huge tail. In that narrow
tunnel he struck an orca every time he moved. Still gripped with blood
lust, the killers bore in. But here they could not attack, for there was
no room in which to maneuver; the whale's floundering body filled the
tunnel. Flung against the ice wall with tremendous force, an orca
quivered and turned over, white belly up. Two more, finally seeking
escape, were smashed by the whale's tossing tail. The whale struggled
still more furiously.

When he finally stopped thrashing, there were no orcas left to attack
him. All six had been smashed against the walls of the tunnel. It was as
though a bull moose or caribou had maneuvered land wolves into a narrow
canyon where they were unable to evade his striking hooves.

The whale swam very slowly through the tunnel and out the other side.
The water behind him was red, and blood still streamed from the many
savage wounds which the orcas had inflicted. But the old whale felt
very little pain. He simply swam slower and slower, until all movement
ceased. Only a trickle flowed from his bleeding wounds, and then even
that stopped. The old whale had lived a long and good life in the sea.
Even in his last battle, he had deported himself as befitted a creature
of dignity and stature.

Now at last the sea received him with proper respect. The whale drifted
slowly with the current for a long while. It was almost three weeks
before a fierce storm snarled across the water, and strong waves finally
deposited his body on the arctic shore.

    *    *    *    *    *

Half a thousand yards up on the shore that stretched away from the Bay
of Seals, Kalak lay on her back. All four paws were in the air, and her
head drooped lazily to one side as she let the warm sun play over her
belly.

Its warmth was pleasant, for the summer sun was sinking every day. Last
night, at midnight, it had dipped nearer to the horizon than it had been
in months. Open leads in the Bay of Seals were forming a thick scum of
ice, and the seals which normally splashed and frolicked in the open
leads had to spend more and more time pushing their noses through ice so
they could breathe.

Kalak flopped to her side, raised her head, and glanced at the cub, who
lay on a sunny slope twenty yards away. The cub was fast asleep, with
his head resting on his flank. Kalak rose sleepily, stretched and
yawned, and went back to the shore.

Kalak stood still, looking down a slope of smooth ice that ended at an
open lead. She saw a seal lying at the edge of the ice. Kalak sniffed,
but though she was hungry, she was not yet hungry enough to exert the
effort necessary to catch a meal. She bent her head into the stiff north
wind, and shuffled her feet uneasily as she read the message the wind
brought.

Winter was coming, and when it arrived all the open leads in the Bay of
Seals would be covered by three feet of ice. The seals would remain as
long as the shrimp swarmed and fish were plentiful, but no polar bear
would be able to catch them under the protecting ice. When winter came
the best hunting would lie out on the pack, where there were always open
leads and seals to use them. Sensing the approach of winter, most of the
polar bears which had found summer hunting at the Bay of Seals had
already departed for their winter hunting grounds. Only a few, of which
Kalak's mate was one, still remained.

Kalak looked again at the basking seal, as the wind brought her mate's
scent to her. Kalak sat down and awaited the outcome of her mate's
stalk. She saw only the seal, as a brown mass on the ice, but the wind
continued to carry to her the exact story of what her mate was doing.
Kalak knew when he came near the seal, and when the scent of her mate
and that of the seal came to her with equal strength, she knew that he
was almost ready to strike. Then Kalak saw her cub.

He appeared on top of the smooth ice that sloped down to the lead, a
gangling thing, still possessed of a cub's awkwardness. The cub ran a
happy tongue out, and with reckless enthusiasm flung himself down the
slope. Sliding on his fat belly, he sailed gaily past the seal and
frightened it into the water a second before Kalak's mate could have
made his kill.

The big male rose, bellowing his rage, and flung himself into the water
where the cub's wild slide had dumped him. Hearing his father's bawls of
anger, and trying frantically to escape punishment, the cub swam across
the lead, climbed out on the far side, and raced parallel to it. Kalak's
mate swam after him.

Kalak ran, quartering on a course that would bring her between the cub
and his angry father. She plunged into the lead, swam across, and
climbed out to face her mate. He hesitated, then came a step nearer and
stopped again when Kalak snarled. The big male's roaring subsided to a
few threatening grumbles. He knew the fury of an aroused mother bear,
and obviously Kalak was willing to fight if he would not let the cub
alone.

The big male turned away and, with an air of decision, started off
across the ice. When he came to an open lead he swam straight across,
and kept going. Kalak raised her head to watch while the chastened cub
came in to crouch at her heels. The big male did not swerve or look
back. The last Kalak saw of him, he was far out on the pack and still
trekking steadily northward.

Three days later, except for Kalak and her cub, there were no polar
bears on the Bay of Seals.




  _Chapter IV_

  THE MIST BEAR


Chuesandrin sat on an old sealskin spread on the floor of his tent and
reflected upon the various problems in the devil-driver's trade. While
he meditated, he chewed on a small piece of meat from the caribou Agtuk
had brought down.

Chuesandrin sighed wistfully. It would be a priceless asset for any
devil-driver if there really were devils which he could control at will.
Then, if the devil-driver did not fancy the treatment he received at the
hands of the villagers, he could simply order one of his devils to drive
all the game away. As soon as the villagers repented their sins, and
made proper atonement, the devil could be instructed to bring the game
back.

Unfortunately, he had no devils. That would still not be too serious if
Agtuk did not understand the lack of devils as well as Chuesandrin did.
But Agtuk did understand. What was worse, he now had half the village
believing as he did, instead of having everyone believe in Chuesandrin.
If enough people swung about to Agtuk's viewpoint it was even possible
that he, Chuesandrin, would have to get out and hunt for a living,
instead of demanding and receiving tribute from those who did hunt. That
in itself would be intolerable enough. But Chuesandrin had an even more
difficult and immediate problem to solve.

He didn't like Natkus, Agtuk's dog, and so he had put a devil in the
dog. Chuesandrin had sincerely believed, when he bade the devil go live
in Natkus, that the pressure of public opinion would bring Agtuk to kill
his favorite hunting dog. Apparently Agtuk not only cared nothing for
public opinion, but he had even dared tell the devil-driver that he,
personally, would be held responsible for Natkus' safety.

Chuesandrin sighed again. He knew perfectly well that there wasn't any
game and that there was little likelihood of any. However, after he had
had his revenge on Natkus, he had planned to create a special omen that
would tell the villagers that they had best move to other hunting
grounds. Now Agtuk had forestalled him even there. He had said it first.

That placed Chuesandrin in a bad dilemma. He knew as well as Agtuk that
the hunters would find good hunting in the Bay of Seals. After they
found it, and remembered that the devil-driver had prophesied that they
would find only devils, the whole village might doubt Chuesandrin. And
that, from a devil-driver's viewpoint, would be disastrous.

Chuesandrin made his decision. He would take the devil out of Natkus.

He rose, rummaged in a miscellaneous pile of odds and ends until he
found what he sought, and looked critically at it. Actually, it was a
spool of ordinary black thread, but to Chuesandrin it was the tiniest
and most fragile thing he had ever seen. Obviously the Eskimo who had
traded it to Chuesandrin for half a walrus tusk had wandered too long in
the sun. He claimed that he had received the thread from strange men
with white skin and beards on their faces. They talked an unknown
gibberish, the Eskimo had said, and travelled in an oomiak larger than
the biggest whale. Chuesandrin had listened gravely to the silly tale
because he had not wished to discourage the trade. Though the thread had
no practical use, he had thought that it might some time be well adapted
to devil-driving. That time was here.

Chuesandrin sliced another chunk from his share of the caribou which
Agtuk had killed and held it in his hand. Then he cut the chunk in two
and put half of it back. Devils could be tempted with very little and,
on the whole, devil-drivers probably had the healthier appetite.
Chuesandrin snapped off ten feet of thread, tied one end to the meat,
coiled the thread carefully, and put both that and the meat in a sleeve
of his caribou-skin jacket.

When he walked out of his tent he looked neither to the right nor the
left, but only ahead. He bent to pick up a few willow sticks, scraped
tinder from them, and caught up two chunks of iron pyrite that were
lying beside the sticks. Then he looked up and suddenly stiffened.

The tents of those hunters who were going to the Bay of Seals buzzed
with activity, and the tents of those who must help move the village
were only a little less active. Nobody except a few children had had
time to glance up at the crest of a near-by hill and see a herd of
caribou winding around it, and the children were too busy staring at
the devil-driver to pay attention to anything else.

Chuesandrin knelt down, arranged his tinder and sticks, struck a spark
into the tinder, and blew it until a flame arose. With grave
deliberation he arranged his meat on the ground, roared at the children
until they fled, uncoiled the thread, and, except for enough to reach
from his hand to the ground, covered it with dust. Then he called Agtuk
imperatively.

The hunter came to the door of his lodge, saw who had summoned him, and
turned to go back in. Chuesandrin raised his voice.

"I have found a way to drive the devil out of Natkus, and thus to insure
hunting success in the Bay of Seals! Would you dare risk failure when
success can certainly be had?"

Attracted by the devil-driver's shouting, other hunters gathered about.
Their women hung in the background, looking alternately at Chuesandrin
and at Agtuk. Their faces were questioning, tense. Agtuk hesitated. He
didn't believe in devils, but some of his people never would lose their
fear of them. They would go to the Bay of Seals anyway, but they would
go happier and be more eager if they thought there were no devils to mar
their prospects.

"Speak to the point and swiftly, devil-driver. I have hunting equipment
to make ready."

"Bring Natkus," Chuesandrin directed. Then remembering that Natkus had
chased him across the village, he added, "but hold him."

Agtuk approached, his hand resting lightly on Natkus' head.

"Let the dog come near the meat," Chuesandrin directed, "but not near
enough to seize it. I think that the devil will jump out of Natkus into
the meat when he smells it. If so, all of you will see the meat move
when the devil enters it."

The villagers waited tensely. Agtuk wrapped his hand in Natkus' hair,
and let him approach the meat. Natkus strained forward. When his nose
was almost touching the chunk of caribou, Chuesandrin jerked his thread.

"Ai!" he shrieked, rushing forward. "The devil entered the meat! All of
you saw it move!"

Chuesandrin scooped up meat and thread, ran to the fire, and threw both
in.

"The devil is burned!" he chortled. "Now there can be no doubt of
wonderful hunting at the Bay of Seals!"

The devil-driver passed his hand over the fire and the flame burned
red.

"A sign!" he shrieked. "A good sign! There will be food for all while we
are moving to the Bay of Seals! If hunters will go there--" he pointed
toward the valley into which he had seen the caribou disappear--"there
will be meat in plenty! Approach carefully and shoot well, for there
will be many caribou! I, Chuesandrin, say this."

    *    *    *    *    *

Later that evening Agtuk entered Chuesandrin's tent. In one hand he held
a choice caribou head, while in the other he bore something else.

"Here," he grinned, extending the head. "Meat for a devil-driver from a
hunter. And here--" Agtuk extended his other hand, about which was wound
the remnants of the black thread--"is your devil, Chuesandrin, the very
one that made the meat move when Natkus' devil entered it." He smiled.
"It makes no difference even if you are a rogue. The village is happy
again and the hunters are eager! There will be good times ahead!"

    *    *    *    *    *

After the hunters had secured so much caribou meat that no person or dog
in the village was in any immediate danger of hunger, they were in no
hurry to start for the Bay of Seals. There were harpoons and lances to
be sharpened, and new weapons to be made. Knives, bows and arrows, and
thongs had to be checked in order to insure that they would not fail
when they were most needed. The oomiak in which Agtuk and his seven
companions, as well as their dogs and gear, would precede the village,
must be examined and repaired very carefully. When they were well on
their journey, there would be neither time nor adequate facilities for
such repair work. Meanwhile, as long as there was plenty of meat, why
pine for more? Nobody was hungry.

Throughout, Agtuk fretted. His lances and harpoons, as well as his bows
and arrows, were always in such good repair that he could snatch up any
weapon in his lodge and, at a moment's notice, be ready for the hunt. He
always knew the quality of his clothing and dog harness and, when that
quality became impaired in any way, Larensa repaired it. He lived by
hunting, therefore he must always be ready to hunt.

Every day, while the village feasted or, under the pretense of preparing
for the journey, idled, he journeyed into the hills to seek more caribou
or out on the ice to look for seals. Twice he found, stalked, and
harpooned seals. There was nothing else; the caribou had not returned
to the haunts in which they were usually found nor had many seals come
back to the leads. So Agtuk worried, while the village consumed the
plenty it had discovered in one providential herd of caribou.

Instead of remaining high for twenty-four hours, and little different at
night than it was at noon, the sun had started its dip below the horizon
when Toolah approached him.

"All is ready for the start," he announced. "My harpoons and lances are
sharp, my fishing gear is in order, my best dog is fat and eager to go."

"And," Agtuk said dryly, "there is little food remaining in your wife's
cooking pot."

Toolah nodded gravely. "It is true that we should have started for the
Bay of Seals when we had much food to see us through."

"Are the others as ready as you?" Agtuk asked.

"They are. Chuesandrin has also prepared a charm for each of us in order
that we may be safe on our journey. Here is yours, Agtuk."

"Chuesandrin also sees a shortage of food soon," Agtuk observed as he
tucked the bit of twisted grass inside his shirt. "Very well, Toolah. We
start tomorrow, as soon as the sun is high enough to melt the ice that
will form when it sinks tonight. Tell the others to be ready."

Natkus came to greet him when Agtuk went to his own lodge. He petted the
dog briefly, sank down on his skin-covered couch, and almost instantly
was fast asleep. His was the rest of a hunter, who may have to remain
awake for hours without end, and who can sleep for many hours when an
opportunity presents.

Agtuk rose when the sun was again high. He ate heartily of the boiled
caribou and seal blubber which Larensa had cooked for him, gathered up
his selected hunting weapons, and strode down to the sea where the
oomiak waited.

Now an eager longing to be away possessed him. He was Agtuk, the hunter.
The strongest and most skillful of the Endorah, he was responsible for
all. He knew that, at last, all were setting out to a place of plenty.
It was a good place, one where the old people, the children, the
hunters, and even the dogs, could find so much food that they might eat
until they could hold no more. With ill-concealed impatience Agtuk
awaited the coming of the seven who were to go with him.

Each man came accompanied by his favorite dog and carrying his best
weapons, as well as that portion of food which he had allotted to see
him through the journey. Agtuk helped with the loading of the sledge
which was meant to carry the oomiak over ice fields where no open water
existed. Then he said goodbye to Larensa.

"Be of good cheer," he bade her. "Give no heed to Chuesandrin, who will
try to take everything over, now that I am gone, and watch yourself on
the journey. Depend on no one else."

"I will remember, Agtuk," she smiled.

He caught up a paddle and did not glance back as the oomiak slid down a
long open lead. The eager restlessness grew within him. Was he not
Agtuk, strong man of the Ice People? Being strong, he had strength to
give to others; this was the way his tribe must always go. When no game
lived near them, they had to move to the game. It had always been so and
it always would be so. Neither devil-drivers, nor great storms, nor
intense cold, nor anything else, would ever change that.

When they came to the ice at the end of the lead they climbed out,
lifted the oomiak, and placed it upon the sled they had brought for the
purpose. The eight dogs were harnessed and hitched to the sled. Agtuk
led the way across the apparently trackless ice fields, while the dogs
strained behind him and his seven companions walked beside the dogs.
Agtuk watched the ice, the sun, and the way the snow drifts slanted. By
such signs he guided himself and those who came with him.

When they were tired they set their skin tent up on the pack ice, tied
the dogs, poured a little seal oil into a cooking lamp, boiled caribou
meat, and ate. When they had rested they were off again. Late that day,
scouting ahead of the rest, Agtuk found and killed a seal. They did not
linger here, because the dogs, marching steadily over the ice, gave no
sign that there were other seals. Thus, eating when they were hungry and
resting when they were tired, travelling in the oomiak where there was
open water and over the ice where there was none, on the seventh day
they came to the Bay of Seals.

Agtuk looked at it. From repeated freezings, leads which had been open
were now ice-locked. Within a few days the ice on those old leads would
be strong enough to support a man, but now it was not. However, there
was plenty of other ice upon which a man could walk. Agtuk unfastened
Natkus and threw the harness in the oomiak.

"Go up on the shore and make camp," he directed three of the hunters
who had accompanied him. "The rest will hunt seals."

Natkus ranged ahead when the hunters walked on the ice. Presently, he
stopped to snuffle in the snow. Careful not to jar the ice or make any
noise, one of the hunters walked to the dog's side, brushed some of the
snow away, and probed with the end of his spear until he had found a
seal's breathing hole. He thrust a slim ivory bobber into the hole and
stood with his spear poised.

Agtuk called Natkus, and the four remaining hunters walked over the ice
until the dog found another breathing hole. They left a hunter there and
searched out three more holes. Agtuk stayed at the last one, and bade
Natkus lie down at his side.

He waited, his spear ready, unwavering eyes fixed on the slender ivory
bobber that thrust above the snow. This sort of hunting called for
endless patience as well as absolute silence, for any seal might have a
dozen breathing holes and it could be hours before he came to a hole
where a hunter waited. If there was the least alien sound the seal would
not come at all.

However, this time Agtuk had stood for scarcely five minutes when,
pushed sharply by something beneath the ice, the ivory bobber came up
through the hole. Agtuk thrust hard with his spear, and felt it go
through the ice deep into a seal. The hunter gripped his spear with both
hands, and grinned broadly. When he looked about, his grin widened. Of
the five hunters who had poised beside breathing holes, two besides
himself had already thrust their spears and found game.

The hunters who had gone to set up camp came running with axes and ice
chisels, and chopped the seals out of the ice. Agtuk looked at Nalee and
Moostantin, the two others who had struck game.

"Is this not rightly called the Bay of Seals?" he asked.

"Aye," Moostantin agreed happily. "Thanks to the wisdom and foresight of
Agtuk, we shall winter amid plenty!"

That day the hunters took nine seals, and more on each succeeding day,
until, when the rest of the village arrived, there was enough seal meat,
blubber and oil, to assure them of food and fuel for many weeks to come.

    *    *    *    *    *

The day after the village was set up, Moostantin took two dogs and set
off across the ice on an exploring trip. Less than an hour after he had
left the village, he staggered painfully back. Half his parka and
fawn-skin undershirt were torn away. Blood streamed down his arm.

Agtuk ran to meet him and Toolah caught him as he fell. Agtuk bent over
him.

"What did you see?" he asked. "What did you meet out on the ice?"

Moostantin raised his head. "Kalak," he whispered.

"The mist bear!" Toolah exclaimed.

"The mist bear," Moostantin agreed weakly. "The great bear that no one
except me has ever met. It was Kalak, for there are no other bears like
her. She came with her cub, which I wounded with my spear. Then Kalak
attacked me, and would have killed me had not my dogs interfered."
Moostantin smiled wanly. "Now I may be almost as great a hunter as you,
Agtuk, for I have fought with Kalak."

Larensa and Moostantin's wife helped the wounded hunter into his lodge.
Agtuk raced to his tent. Whenever hunters had gathered and talked among
themselves, many had been the tales of Kalak, the bear that could change
into mist. Although Kalak's tracks were always recognized, she herself
was never seen. Now she was here, within striking distance of the camp,
and had already wounded a hunter. However, Agtuk thought grimly, she
also had a wounded cub with her.

Agtuk snatched up his sharpest lance, called Natkus to his side, and
joined the nine hunters who were already plunging down onto the ice. The
dog pack ran with them as they followed the trail Moostantin had made.
They found Moostantin's two dogs, already stiffly frozen.

The great bear track and the smaller cub's track leading away from the
bodies of the two dogs were plain. The pack snarled happily away.

    *    *    *    *    *

Kalak stayed on the Bay of Seals long after the rest of the polar bears
were gone. Only after the ice became too thick to smash with her paw and
open a way to the seals beneath it, did she start to guide her cub back
toward the easier hunting in the center of the ice pack.

She was fat and the cub had grown, for all summer long they had had rich
hunting. Also, throughout the season, they had encountered no human
beings. The absence of people, the only creatures she feared, had made
the giant bear more careless than she had ever been. She was confident
of her ability to protect the cub.

Kalak quartered along the shore, taking the easiest route to the hunting
grounds she wanted to reach. Since the wind was blowing hard from her
toward the camp, she did not smell the Eskimo village until she was
within a mile of it.

She stopped, swinging her head about as she sought more evidence of the
human beings who had again encroached upon her hunting grounds. The cub
paced ahead and disappeared among some ice hummocks. Again Kalak caught
the elusive scent that had startled her.

Then, so near that its full warmth was carried into her nostrils, she
got the scent of Moostantin and his two dogs. Down among ice hummocks,
Moostantin had been below the level of the wind that swept over them.
Now, scarcely two hundred yards away, he climbed over the ridge of an
ice hummock and his scent became very plain. At the same time Kalak
heard the two dogs yell. Her cub bawled in pain.

Swiftly as only a polar bear can, Kalak ran over the uneven ice. At all
times, because of the cub, she had tried to avoid human beings. Now
Kalak's fear evaporated. Half a ton of blazing fury, she hurled herself
toward the thing that had dared hurt her cub. She would have charged a
whole village full of Eskimos.

She burst around a hummock and saw the cub. Blood bubbled out of the
wound in his shoulder where Moostantin had thrust with his lance, and
stained his white fur. The cub had backed against an ice hummock where,
with snarling lips, he faced the two hysterical dogs that beset him.
Moostantin, trying for a new thrust with his lance, did not hear Kalak
come.

The big ice bear charged recklessly, intent upon the most immediate
threat to her cub. She paused only a second as she passed Moostantin,
struck his shoulder a glancing blow, and sent him spinning across the
ice. Kalak pounced upon the two dogs, grasped one in her grinding jaws,
and slapped the other with her right paw. The dogs died so swiftly that
they were scarcely aware of the fury that struck them down. Agile as a
cat, Kalak turned toward the man.

He had risen, she saw, and was staggering over the ice. Kalak took half
a dozen furious strides toward him but, when the cub whimpered, she
turned back.

The cub moved out from his ice hummock, snuffled at the two dogs, and
struck them a furious blow with his unwounded paw. He growled, and
limped painfully toward Kalak. The mother bear examined him anxiously.

Though Moostantin's lance had thrust falsely, and missed the heart, it
had gone deep. The cub curled his right paw beneath him, and red
streaked the ice over which he moved. Kalak gently licked his wound with
her warm tongue. A sudden desperation rose within her. For two years she
had revolved her life around this cub and devoted all her attention to
seeing him grow up. Now she saw that he was badly wounded.

She fully realized the peril of the situation. She already knew that
there was an Eskimo camp not far away. If one hunter was prowling the
ice there might be more. Kalak bent her head very close to her cub, as
though questioning him, then turned and started at right angles to the
direction she had been taking. The cub limped behind her.

Kalak turned her head, her anxiety growing. She would like to travel
fast, but the cub's best pace was an awkward gallop. Kalak slowed her
own pace sufficiently to let the cub stay beside her. Then she let him
lead and dropped behind. If danger came, it would approach from the
rear.

They journeyed straight out across the Bay, toward the depths of the
pack ice. Faintly behind them Kalak thought she heard the yelling of
dogs, and deliberately dropped farther behind the straining cub.
Regardless of what happened to her, the cub must get away.

The cub tried to climb an ice hummock, fell down, picked himself up, and
started again. This time he got over the top and slid down the other
side. The cold and the wind had healed the cub's wound so that it did
not bleed any more, but he was still unable to use his right front paw,
and could not travel as fast as Kalak would have liked to go.

The mother bear climbed the hummock, and for a moment stood on top of
it, the better to scan her back trail. She saw nothing, but now she was
certain that she heard dogs yelling in the distance. Kalak followed her
cub down the hummock and into the humped ice field on the other side.
The desperate fear within her was now allayed by hope.

There was a chance of escaping and she knew it, for from ahead came the
distinct scent of open water. If they could reach that ahead of the
hunters, and swim across, their pursuers might not be able to follow.
The cub tried hard to scrape his way up another hummock, but fell back
again. Kalak ran past, round the end of the slope. If the cub was unable
to climb she would have to choose an easier path for him. The smell of
open water became more pronounced.

Then Kalak saw the lead, a great expanse of water with jagged ice
peninsulas jutting into it. So far away that it was only vaguely
distinguishable, she saw the pack ice on the other side. Behind, the
yelling of the pack was very plain. The dogs were almost upon them.

Kalak came to the edge of the ice and without hesitation leaped in. She
turned, making a rippling swirl in the water as she tried to coax the
cub in. Instead of leaping in behind her, he stopped on the edge of the
ice, his wounded paw curled beside him. The cub knew what Kalak did
not--he could no longer swim.

A confused brown and gray mass against the ice's white background, the
dogs swept into sight and set up a great yelping. Kalak climbed back out
on the ice and led the cub out onto one of the ice peninsulas. Then she
swung at bay, facing the pack.

The pack raced up to her, stopped just short of striking distance, and
increased their racket. With the unerring eye of a trained fighter,
Kalak selected Natkus from the rest of the pack. He was the biggest and
most dangerous.

She leaped like a cat at Natkus, but when she struck he was no longer
there. Kalak swung her great hooked claws at another dog, and swept it
off the ice into the water. Then the pack closed in, biting at her
flanks and rear. Kalak brushed them off, and retreated to stand before
her cub. A great snarl rippled from her throat when she saw Agtuk lead
the hunters into sight. She could charge the hunters but if she did the
cub would be at the mercy of the dogs. She must stay where she could
defend him.

Bolder now, with the arrival of their masters, the pack surged in again.
The cub dragged himself painfully to Kalak's side, and faced the pack
with snarling jaws. Cub though he was, he was still a polar bear, ready
to fight.

Kalak swung her ponderous head toward Agtuk. She sensed that just as
Natkus excelled among the dogs, so did this hunter among the men.

The men began to close in on her. She bit at Nalee's lance, splintered
it in her jaws, and then whirled furiously at a hunter who was creeping
up on the cub. Before she could strike, the hunter's lance flicked
forward and the cub sprawled flat on the ice. Kalak bounded forward,
caught the man who had killed her cub, and crushed his head with one
sledge-hammer blow.

She felt Agtuk's lance burn into her side, then another and another. She
lunged forward, roaring defiance, but now she could no longer see
clearly either the men or the dogs. She was only dimly aware of
figures, and turned this way and that, striking blindly.

Then she heard a splintering crash and saw the figures leap wildly to
regain the safety of the pack ice. The long arm that jutted into the
open lead had broken off. Carrying the wounded Kalak with it, the ice
cake floated out to sea.




  _Chapter V_

  BLOOD ON THE ICE


Wind lashed out of the northeast, swooped low to the water, and blew it
into rolling waves that tossed the ice cake high and let it fall. A gull
came out of the sky to hover above the wounded bear. Another gull joined
it, and then another. They did not move their wings, but dipped and
whirled or rose and fell according to the wind currents. As they circled
and dipped, the gulls squawked in indecision.

A hundred times had each gull feasted on seals killed by polar bears or
caribou killed by wolves. They were experienced scavengers whose
business it was to clean up refuse left on the ice, and they knew just
how to go about it. But now they hesitated. There was a polar bear
beneath them and even though it looked dead, it still commanded fear and
respect. The gulls swooped lower, and still lower, until finally their
courage had risen to the point where the boldest among them dared to
light on the ice cake. It stood with wings poised, ready to take to the
air again at a second's notice. The gull bent its head to look at Kalak.

Though the gull had come down to previous bears when they killed game,
it had not been afraid. Those bears had been busy with the seals they
had killed and, as soon as they finished eating, they went their way and
left the rest to the gulls. But this bear had no seal. There was
something unusual about it, something foreign to the gull's experience
with bears. Was Kalak merely resting on the ice or was she, as the gull
hoped, dead? The gull uttered a tentative squawk, and when Kalak did not
move the gull squawked again. Its two companions came hastily down.

For a moment they stood on the edge of the ice, as far from Kalak as
they could get. Suddenly they rose, flapping their wings as they
ascended three or four feet into the air. They hovered directly over the
motionless bear. Certainly she was dead.

In the depths of the sea over which the ice cake floated, a shadow
moved. It rose from the depths into translucent water, and the clear
outline of a single orca was framed in the sea. Coming farther up, the
orca broke water with its great back fin. It swam clear around the ice,
then charged full speed toward it. The orca rammed the ice cake with its
head, hoping to tip it so that Kalak would slide into the water. But the
killer whale succeeded only in bringing consciousness back to the hurt
bear.

When Kalak raised her head, the gulls screamed away and disappeared.
With a great effort the bear rose, tearing out quantities of fur that
had frozen in the blood which had bubbled from her onto the ice. She was
no longer bleeding; the cold had stopped her wound. Kalak staggered two
weak steps and sank to a sitting position. She whimpered plaintively and
looked about for the cub. He was not with her. Kalak swung slowly about
to face the direction from which the ice cake had drifted.

She remembered now, and memory of the thing that had been done to her
brought a consuming rage. She took a weak step forward, but fell and lay
where she had fallen. Reaching forward with her front paws, she tried to
hook them into the ice and pull herself on. The cake of ice had drifted
so far that she could not even see the pack from which it had broken,
but she still wished to swim back and renew the battle with the Eskimos.

Coming in with smashing force, the orca struck the floating ice again. A
long sliver broke away and fell into the sea, and the ice split a few
inches from the place where Kalak lay.

She looked over the edge of the ice and saw the orca, which now lay
motionless in the water, looking up at her. Kalak tried to raise a paw
to strike at it. She knew orcas, and what they could do, but she was not
afraid of them. She dragged herself nearer to the edge of the ice. The
orca rose, slashed, missed, and fell back. Kalak tried again to raise
her paw and strike, but could not. She had lost too much blood.

The orca smashed the ice cake again and again. Failing to break or tip
it, the killer followed along on top of the water, hungry eyes fixed on
Kalak. When she struggled again to her feet, stumbled, and almost slid
into the water, the orca darted eagerly forward, only to be disappointed
again. Kalak had crawled farther up on the ice. The orca continued to
follow the ice raft.

The sun had fallen behind the horizon, and twilight had taken the place
of constant daylight, when the friendly wind at last shoved the ice
cake against the pack's solid barrier. The eager orca waited just off
the edge of the solid ice, hoping the bumping of the ice cake would
dislodge the bear.

Then a tremendous wave rolled in and heaved the cake clear up on the
solid pack.

Kalak rose, and stood for an unsteady moment. She fell from the ice cake
and picked herself up. Slowly, her head bent and her black nose almost
brushing the ice, she walked farther up on the pack. It was a shambling
walk, for weakness was again creeping over her. With an effort she
raised her head, and stared at the pale stars that had bloomed in the
sky. She knew she should eat, but she could not hunt.

A white shadow flitted by, and one of the tiny arctic foxes emerged from
a hummock to stare for a moment at her. The fox slipped silently back.

Kalak fought slowly on, threading her way around hummocks that she could
no longer go over. She paused a moment, as though listening for
something that should be on her back trail, and continued.

A mile from where her cake of ice had bumped the barrier, she came to a
high knoll. Kalak stopped, and raised her head while she studied it.
Like a small hill, the knoll was merely a heap of ice on the ice pack.
It had been higher, but the summer sun had melted its peaked top down
to a flat one. Melting ice water, running down the side of the knoll,
had worn a sloping gully.

Kalak climbed the gully. Ordinarily she would have ascended it easily,
but now she had to labor up the slope. She was breathless and almost
without strength when she reached the summit. She walked out on the flat
top and looked all about, satisfied that it was the safest place she
could find in her weakened condition. Then she lay down to rest.

Kalak lay quietly on her icy retreat while the sun rose, set, and rose
again. She was patient, accepting this period as only a wild creature
would accept it. Events to come must take one of two courses; she would
die here or she would recover and leave. Even while death hovered near
she fought it because she did not know how to do anything else. Her
entire life had been a battle for things which she must have, and the
smallest fiber within her had never surrendered to anything.

After she had lain for more than thirty hours on top of the knoll, the
natural strength and resiliency of her tough body asserted themselves.
She was still weak, and the natural senses with which she was endowed
told her that it would be best not to move too much until she could do
so freely. But she was definitely better.

She stood up, looked about the top of the knoll, and moved to the gully
up which she had climbed. Anything else that came would try to ascend
the same way; it was a good defensive position.

It was there that Kalak met the wolves.

For five days the wolf pack had ranged the frozen wastes without finding
game weak enough or unprotected enough to be pulled down. In the hope of
surprising an unwary seal, they had swung back to the edge of the ice
barrier. Coursing along the open water, they came to Kalak's abandoned
ice raft.

Ordinarily, the wolves would have followed the bear's tracks cautiously,
hoping for no more than the frozen remains of her kills. But the scent
of blood showed that this bear was wounded. Moreover, the wolves were
desperate with hunger. The pack swung about on Kalak's trail, red
tongues lolling, fangs gleaming in their murderous open mouths.

They came leaping across the ice, crying and eager, positive that the
trail they were on would lead them to a wounded and helpless beast. A
big white wolf led by ten lengths, and flung himself recklessly up the
gully. The pack followed, the animals in the rear trying to push ahead.

Far-off, suddenly cracking ice muffled the white leader's shrill cry as
Kalak struck him. He went down with the first blow, his back broken.
Kalak's weakness was overcome by flaming anger. Long ago, this same pack
of wolves had come to another far-off place. Kalak had not been present
when they came, but her two tiny cubs had been, and she never saw them
again. The enraged ice bear struck again, and again. She even slid down
the gully, eager to get into the thickest of the fight. With no room in
which to dodge the bear's murderous claws, and pushed on by those
behind, each wolf had to meet the enraged Kalak alone.

When she was finished, only one wolf raced back across the ice in the
direction from which it had come. Kalak reared on her hind legs,
growling, then dropped back on the ice. She pulled a dead wolf to her
and began to eat.

    *    *    *    *    *

Five days later she left the knoll and shuffled off across the ice. She
was not hungry for she had fed on the wolves, but she was very thin. Her
skin sagged in heavy folds, and for the first time she felt the wind
that keened across the ice pack.

Now she must have food, not lean wolf but the rich fat and blubber to
which she was accustomed. Kalak sat down to rest, then went on. She
stalked and missed a seal beside an open lead. A second time she failed
to strike game. She shambled on, still sick and weak.

Then she caught a rich and heavy odor that blew from the arctic shore.
Kalak swung her head, turned at an angle to the course she had been
following, and pursued the enticing scent. It was the dead whale.

Kalak strode steadily forward, not swerving or hesitating even though,
with the scent of the whale, came the odors of other animals which had
already found it. She could smell another polar bear, one of those from
the Bay of Seals, and many of the little white foxes. There was also the
faint odor of wolves. Kalak walked faster. She hated all wolves, and if
she could lure another pack into battle she would do so.

But of prime importance now was plenty of rich food to renew her wasted
strength; she could do little else until she had eaten that food. The
sun went down, and the stars came out before Kalak saw the whale.

The first waves had brought it gently to the beach, but succeeding angry
seas had carried it farther up until it was entirely clear of the water.
A long, high mass that looked almost black in the pale light cast by
the flickering stars, the whale lay with its great head upon the beach
and its tail toward the sea.

Only slightly larger than a big cat, a small fox frisked down to the ice
to meet Kalak when she came. Not yet completely white, the fox's fur was
fast acquiring that snowy shade which it would have when the sun rose
not at all and twenty-four hours of darkness closed over the arctic sea.
Unhurriedly he moved a little to one side when Kalak passed him, and sat
down again, curling his bushy tail about his front paws and lifting
first one paw and then the other.

Kalak glanced disinterestedly at him and continued. In summer she shared
her kills with the ubiquitous gulls, but most of them had already
departed for the south and open water. Now the little foxes, which had
spent the whole summer back from the sea rearing their families, and
living on hares, lemmings, birds, and birds' eggs while they did so, had
returned to the shore. When winter arrived one or more foxes would
attach themselves to each polar bear and follow it all the time, knowing
that they could live luxuriously on whatever the big ice bears
discarded.

Kalak was aware that, when she passed, the little fox fell obediently in
behind her, but gave no more thought to her follower. For as long as she
could remember, when she had been on the ice in winter, one or more
foxes were her constant companions. She did not mind because the foxes
were mild and inoffensive little creatures. They never interfered with
her and certainly were incapable of doing her harm. The foxes wanted
only such food as she could not eat.

Having already gorged himself on the dead whale, the fox sat down a few
feet away and curled his tail across his front legs as Kalak went in to
eat. The other polar bear which had found the whale, a much smaller
female, moved to the other side and continued eating from that safe
place. Kalak ignored her. A dozen times during their sojourn at the Bay
of Seals she had come across the smaller bear and warned her to get out
of the way. The small female had always been careful to avoid Kalak, as
she avoided her now.

Kalak bit through the whale's leathery skin and deep into the rich layer
of blubber that lay just beneath it. It was cold and partly frozen, but
it was rich and good. She ate, spurning the skin and all lean meat and
taking only blubber, until her belly could hold no more. Then she lay
down for a nap.

But even while she slept her unsleeping nose kept her informed of
everything that went on about her. From twenty to thirty of the little
foxes ripped and pulled at the dead whale. Occasionally some of them
glided away like shadows into the starlit night, but they came back or
others came to take their places. Kalak was aware when the other polar
bear got up to resume eating. She even knew of the lemmings, the little
arctic mice, that moved furtively beneath the dead whale and ate their
tiny portions.

Then another scent crossed her nostrils and she came swiftly awake. The
little fox which had attached himself to her came in nearer. The other
foxes stood still, listening in the darkness and awaiting what would
happen. On the other side of the whale, the small polar bear went
unconcernedly on with her eating. She had no feud with wolves.

Kalak had, and when the pack she had scented came nearer, she snarled
out to meet them. The little foxes moved in behind her. Ordinarily, when
a wolf pack came, they fled at the first scent. Now that they had an
able champion there was no reason to flee.

Kalak met the wolves in the darkness. Lean, white beasts, scarcely seen
against the snow upon which they ran, they appeared almost magically, as
though they had somehow risen out of the snow. Now they stopped, stood
silently for a moment, and melted back in the direction from which they
had come. They had no wish to try conclusions with a polar bear who so
obviously wanted to fight with them.

Kalak returned to the dead whale and again filled her belly with
blubber. Without resentment she saw the little foxes eat, and the other
bear. There was enough meat on the whale to feed them all throughout the
winter, if need be. Everything that came, excepting wolves and men,
could have a share as far as she was concerned.

The sun rose, climbing into the sky and shining down on the ice pack.
But summer warmth did not come with it, and within half an hour even the
sun was hidden by thick cloud banks. A few hours afterward twilight had
fallen. There were no melted pools or lakes on the ice pack now. The
season was advancing swiftly to the twenty-four-hour night.

Kalak saw the little fox which had attached itself to her curl up
companionably and watch while she ate. Even when Kalak slept the little
fox was seldom more than twenty feet away. He knew as well as Kalak that
he might stay at the whale and have plenty to eat all winter, but he
didn't want to. Strong within the fox's memory were better and fresher
foods which he had eaten and which he would like to eat again, and he
could afford to wait. Kalak would not stay forever at this dead whale,
and when she left the little fox would go with her.

The next day the smaller female left and a big male polar bear ambled in
from the sea--an old, surly brute whose teeth were worn down to stubs.
He slapped irritably at the foxes around the whale carcass. They only
slid nimbly out of his way. The old bear was too old to move swiftly,
and polar bears could not catch foxes anyway. The old bear stayed as far
as possible from Kalak. An ill-natured, lonely thing whose usefulness
was done, he would have starved to death on the ice had he not found the
whale. Never again would he be able to hunt.

As the days passed, the loose folds in Kalak's shaggy skin filled out
and tightened. She restored her layer of fat, and her strength. With
recovery came restlessness.

One morning, with the gentle little fox so close to her heels that he
seemed a cub following its mother, she strode straight away from the
whale and out on the ice. Behind them, the foxes and the polar bear who
remained about the whale stared solemnly at this foolish pair who would
leave an assured meal to take their chances on the ice pack.

Uncaring, Kalak padded swiftly over the frozen sea, turning her head
full into the cold blast that roared across it. She was strong again,
she was the old Kalak who went where she willed because she wanted it
so. There was nothing to stop her and nothing had better try.

The little white fox trotted contentedly behind. He knew that he would
have plenty to eat if he stayed beside the dead whale, but he had
elected to cast his lot with Kalak, in hope of fresher food. He would
hold to that decision.

Hours later, Kalak stopped to snuffle at the ice; she smelled a
breathing hole where a seal came up for air. Restlessly she paced about,
looking for a way to penetrate the ice and find that seal. But the ice
was thick and the leads frozen.

She nosed around another breathing hole, then went on. The first sharp
hunger in days pinched her belly. She growled belligerently. Usually the
sea ice was never so thick and strong, or so solidly frozen, that she
was unable to break it. Now it was. The seals she could smell were as
safe as they would have been encased in steel armor plate.

Lighted by stars, and occasionally by the aurora, the ice was a
nightmarish place of weird shapes and shadows. There were seals beneath
it, for Kalak could smell them, but excepting for herself and the fox
the surface of the ice pack was a vast desert from which all life had
fled. And all the while the north wind blew steadily across the pack,
cold and pitiless.

The day did not pass. Rather, it blended into a deeper and thicker
gloom, an undulating, velvet-like blackness broken by the cold light of
the stars. The arctic seemed a frozen void. Kalak and the fox paced
steadily through the night, two living specks on a plain of infinite
emptiness. As living things, the continuance of their lives depended on
their ability to eat other living things. But except for themselves and
the seals under the ice, there was no life here in the vast frozen
reaches. Where could they find food?

Kalak suddenly thought of the fox in a new light.

Without breaking stride she whirled about and cast herself backward.
Invariably the little fox followed her on the left and about ten feet
behind. When Kalak lunged she brought both paws down on the fox's
accustomed place.

But the fox was not there. There had been no time to think of the bear's
lightning-swift pass, but inborn senses inherited from a thousand
generations were razor-keen. A split second before the bear's flashing
paws cracked down on the ice, he had rolled sideways. Now, with his
bushy tail curled about his legs, he sat twenty feet away. He lifted a
front paw, held it against his body a second, and put it down on the
ice. Then he warmed his other front paw. He knew that Kalak would have
killed and eaten him. But that inspired neither fear nor resentment,
because the fox understood such actions. He himself, if he were able,
would gladly kill and eat anything. The spur of hunger was an old,
well-understood feeling.

The little fox barked, softly and appeasingly, and watched the bear with
calculating eyes. Again, in turn, he pressed each front paw against his
breast. He was ready to spring from another charge should one come. But
none did.

As though it were irresistibly attracted by some magnet set in the
north, Kalak's head swung in that direction, nostrils flaring. She
turned her body, every muscle tense as she probed for more of the faint
story she had scented. It came again, the distinct odor of a seal,
mingled with that of open water!

When Kalak went forward she advanced slowly, searching with her nose
much as a hunting hound does. She padded erratically back and forth
until she had found every one of the five breathing holes which this
seal had gnawed through the ice. The seal had started his holes when
the first thin ice formed, and since then had spent much of his time
gnawing. Now, under the thickened ice, the holes were cigar-shaped
burrows into which the seal could fit his entire body. At the top, under
snow, were small holes through which he drew fresh air. Always, when he
returned from the depths where he chased and caught fish or shrimp, the
seal had to come to one hole or another and breathe. Whenever they froze
over, he had to gnaw them open again.

Having found the seal's breathing holes, Kalak started toward the water
which she could smell not far away. She soon reached it, a
twenty-foot-wide by two-hundred-foot-long opening just recently parted
in the pack. Kalak stood on the edge of the lead, studying it with her
eyes and nose as she sought every fact pertinent to her problem. She had
been born in the world of ice, and had drawn in her ancestors'
accumulated knowledge with her mother's milk. When she finished her
investigation she knew that this lead would remain open for some time.

She dived cleanly, going deep into the water and swimming strongly
beneath the ice. Hers was a master plan, and one which only a master
hunter would dare undertake. If she had made one miscalculation, or now
made one error, she would drown under the ice.

She swam straight to an air pocket, came up in it to breathe, then
dropped back into the murky depths and looked around.

Ahead of her she saw the seal she was trying to catch. She swam slowly
and carefully, anxious not to frighten the animal. She saw the seal drop
a fish it had caught and speed away.

The top of the ice pack was dark, but the water had a translucent
quality strangely at variance with the night outside. Kalak could see
the seal, a dim shape in the distance, glide toward another breathing
hole.

With a rush she was away to intercept it. The seal swerved, retreated
into water where Kalak could no longer see him, and lurked there. Kalak
waited quietly, knowing that he would come back. He had to reach a
breathing hole.

When the seal came back he was swimming furiously. A master of the
water, more agile and swift than the fish in its depths, he could easily
out-swim the bear. But he could not remain away from his breathing
holes. Kalak was there to meet him when he swam toward the air which he
so desperately needed.

The seal turned to dash away, but could no longer swim fast. The air in
his lungs was spent, and his strength with it. Swimming vigorously,
Kalak overtook him, although her own breath was nearly gone.

She climbed out of the same lead she had dived into, and carried the
seal up on the ice. Kalak fed heartily, ignoring the little white fox,
who patiently waited for her to finish.

Having eaten nothing in days, Kalak slept for only an hour after
feasting on the seal's blubber and fat. When she awakened, she strode
straight and purposefully across the ice. Now she could finish the task
she had set for herself. The Bay of Seals lay in the direction she had
taken since leaving the dead whale. Agtuk's village was on the Bay, and
hunters from that village had killed her cub. Kalak had not forgotten
that, and would not forget. She was going for her revenge.

As they approached the shore, Kalak had a sudden, overpowering desire to
eat some grass. She made her way to the shore, followed by the little
fox, who patiently sat with his tail curled about his paws as Kalak
browsed on withered grass that thrust above the few inches of arctic
snow. Kalak raised her head to stare inland, then returned to the ice
pack.

A wind rose, blowing hard from the shore out over the pack. The ice
buckled and heaved, and long leads opened. Cakes of ice floated about on
choppy water, and the heads of seals bobbed among the ice cakes. Even
though the sun was not shining, the seals were glad to get out of the
water and up on the ice again. They grunted back and forth, napped, and
raised their heads every minute or two to look about for danger.

They did not see Kalak. She was again queen of the ice, mistress of her
frozen domain, and a hunter whose hunger seemed to know no bounds. She
came upon the seals and caught them at the edges of their leads before
they were more than aware of her presence.

Kalak feasted, napped, and ate again, but still she was unable to
satisfy her enormous hunger. Hunting as she travelled, she continued
toward the Bay of Seals. She had no definite time to arrive there
because, to her, time meant nothing. Kalak knew only that she must reach
the Bay, and after that Agtuk's village.

The little fox waddled contentedly behind her for he too, had grown fat.
The fox regarded the plenty which was now his portion as philosophically
as he had accepted the lean period when Kalak had been able to catch no
seals. He feasted while he could, for before the long night lifted and
he was able to make his own living on the arctic shore he was sure to
know hunger again.

Kalak came to the Bay of Seals in mid-morning. Now the wind had reversed
its direction, and was blasting over the ice toward the shore. It set
the pack in motion, ceaselessly opening and closing leads. Ice cakes
rammed other ice cakes, and when they could not break or crumble them
they heaved themselves on top and rode. The Bay of Seals in winter was
even more wild and forlorn than it was in summer.

There were no other polar bears on it; Kalak knew that when she tested
the wind. All had left for easier and safer hunting grounds. But, though
the Bay of Seals was far from safe, no hunting could be easier at the
present. The raging wind kept the ice in motion, and the resulting open
water made it simple to get seals.

Kalak caught a seal, ate, and left the rest to the little fox. Then she
curled up to sleep, and because the wind still blew from ice to shore,
she had no knowledge of the man who saw her and then ran.




  _Chapter VI_

  THE DEVIL DRIVER


The devil-driver, Chuesandrin, was in another quandary. He had managed
to discover enough charms and portents of one kind or another to
convince the villagers that he had had at least as much as Agtuk to do
with leading all to the plenty found in the Bay of Seals. Therefore,
Chuesandrin's place in the village was again a respected and honored
one. He had plenty to eat, and, according to requirements, paid for it
by conjuring up or driving away various devils. He had no major worries
because, now that his people were safe, even Agtuk tolerated the
devil-driver and sometimes half-believed him.

But there were various minor irritations. Hunting was hard work, and
hard work was scarcely fitted to the dignity of a devil-driver's
position. However, not hunting had definite disadvantages. It was law
among the Endorah that any hunter who brought anything down might, if he
chose, keep a quarter of it for himself. The remainder was equally
divided among the village. Chuesandrin understood the fairness of that
arrangement, but he didn't like it.

For, when the hunters chose their portions, invariably they selected the
choicest parts for themselves. It had been ten days since Chuesandrin
had eaten anything except what somebody else did not want, and such a
state of affairs simply could not continue. Chuesandrin liked the
tenderest meat and the richest blubber as well as anyone else did.

Now he might have an opportunity to get some. The wife of Toolah, one of
the most successful hunters, had come to Chuesandrin with the
information that Lueni, one of Toolah's sons, had lost his soul. The boy
lay in Toolah's lodge, his head so hot that Toolah's wife was thinking
seriously of extinguishing the oil lamp. Lueni was Toolah's favorite
son. If Chuesandrin would come see what he could do about the devil that
had taken possession of the little boy, Toolah's wife was certain that
the devil-driver would not go unrewarded.

After sending her away, Chuesandrin sat for a long while in his own
lodge. Devil-drivers came up against many difficult problems, and
Chuesandrin had long since learned that his craft was apt to be taken
lightly if he reduced his fees to a simple service charge. Therefore he
could not simply tell Toolah that he must pay a certain number of
oil-filled sealskins and a certain poundage of choice blubber. He had to
be more subtle.

Finally Chuesandrin arose, rummaged in his various devil-driving kits,
and extracted different kinds of dried herbs which he himself had
plucked during the summer. He mixed them carefully, added a little
powdered willow root, poured the whole concoction into a stone dish, and
filled the dish with seal oil. Chuesandrin stirred with an ivory spoon
until the whole mess was evenly dispersed, and poured it into a
sealskin.

Carrying the sealskin bag, Chuesandrin crawled out the tunnel that led
from his snow house and rose in the arctic gloom. He made his way to the
igloo occupied by Toolah and his family, kicked a surly dog out of the
way, and knelt to enter Toolah's tunnel. He crawled past the dog
harnesses, fishing gear, harpoons, thongs, and other articles which
were stored in the tunnel, and arose in Toolah's house.

Lighted and warmed by a fine seal-oil lamp, the house was second in size
only to Agtuk's, and as well made. Lueni lay on caribou skins spread
across the snow sleeping bench. His eyes were bright and glazed; his
face was hot. Toolah came in, and stood anxiously near while Chuesandrin
looked about for signs of the devil that had entered Lueni. The
devil-driver sighed in relief. There was no rattle in Lueni's chest and
his breathing was not labored, therefore his lungs were all right.
Obviously the devil had taken possession of his stomach.

"There is a devil in Lueni's stomach," Chuesandrin announced gravely.
"He went there to hide, but I can entice him into this sealskin. Then I
will take him out and free him on the ice. But I warn you, Toolah, that
he may return. It is cold on the ice, but even if this devil freezes so
hard that he cannot walk, he can command a polar bear to pick him up and
bring him back into the village. If he does, he may hide in Lueni's
stomach again unless he is prevented from so doing."

"How may he be prevented?" Toolah asked anxiously.

"I will take one of Lueni's mittens to my lodge. Thinking that Lueni is
there, for I will make a charm that will cause him to think so, the
devil will then enter my lodge. But he cannot for long be deceived. The
devil will stay in my lodge only if he has five skins of choice seal oil
and the best blubber from five of the fattest seals. Can you furnish
that?"

"Yes."

"Carry it to my lodge then, but first give me a mitten and I shall lure
the devil out of Lueni."

Chuesandrin knelt, held the sealskin bag to Lueni's lips, and poured the
mixture he had prepared down the youngster's throat. Lueni squirmed, and
muttered into the sealskin, which Chuesandrin kept firmly over his
mouth. After a few minutes Chuesandrin jerked the sealskin away and
clapped it shut.

"I have the devil!" he chortled. "See! Lueni is cooler already!"

It was true. Beads of sweat stood on Lueni's forehead, but his eyes were
no longer glazed. Clutching the sealskin, Chuesandrin hurried out of the
lodge. He did not know what long-ago devil-driver of the Endorah had
conceived the cure for stomach-ills, but legend had it that he himself
had been sick in the stomach. Going out from the village, he had watched
various sick animals to see what they ate. Mixing together all the
herbs thus found, he had cured himself and handed the formula for
stomach medicine down to his successor. It had been handed on, from
devil-driver to devil-driver.

With a bag of seal oil in each hand, Toolah crawled out of the lodge and
stood for a moment beside Chuesandrin. He looked respectfully at the
devil-driver. Toolah placed his faith in hunting all the time, and if he
had to defy devil-drivers in order to get meat for his family then he
would do so. But they had their good points.

"Will you take the devil far out on the pack?" Toolah inquired.

"Very far," Chuesandrin assured him. "Have everything I requested ready
at my lodge when I return, or else I may not be able to prevent the
devil's re-entering Lueni."

"It shall be there."

Chuesandrin started into the arctic gloom. He would now have to walk for
some hours, but that was better than poising with a harpoon over a
seal's breathing hole for the same length of time. Besides, he liked to
walk. As soon as he was out of sight, Chuesandrin looped a thong about
his sealskin and slung it carelessly over his shoulder. He grinned.
Probably, among the villagers, only he and Agtuk didn't really believe
in devils. Appreciating the fact that devil-driving was of genuine value
sometimes, Agtuk resented Chuesandrin only when he issued orders that
were contrary to the good of all. However, Chuesandrin had finally
decided that he had better take care about that. It would not be well to
make an enemy of Agtuk.

Three hours after he had left the village, and some miles out on the
ice, Chuesandrin stopped. The wind, that had been blowing hard, began to
roar. The devil-driver walked a little ways farther, then carelessly
threw the sealskin bag down. It was all right to lose a devil on the
ice, but he did not necessarily have to face a blizzard in order to do
it. Suddenly Chuesandrin stopped in his tracks.

A bare hundred yards away, something moved. Chuesandrin stared. By the
stars' dim light he saw a sleeping polar bear. Near-by was a white fox,
which stopped feeding to stare at him. The devil-driver slipped silently
away and began to run. He ran most of the way to the village, and was
panting when he ducked into Agtuk's lodge.

"The devils," he gasped, "are working against us!"

Agtuk said sharply, "You speak to Agtuk now, and not to one of the
villagers!"

"True," Chuesandrin grumbled. "And was it not Agtuk who fought with
Kalak?"

"Yes." Agtuk's interest quickened.

"She is back," Chuesandrin announced.

"Where?"

"She is back on the Bay," Chuesandrin repeated. "I myself saw her, and I
knew her. I cannot forget that you hunters killed her cub, and it is in
my mind that she comes to even the score for that killing. I have heard
of such things."

"I, too," Agtuk agreed. "The mist bear might attack the village! Send
Toolah to me! We must be ready!"

Chuesandrin ran to Toolah's lodge, and crawled in. Toolah glanced at
him.

"You will find everything you requested in your lodge," he pointed out.

"Aye, and it is well," Chuesandrin agreed. "I have, however, come to
advise you that the devil which was in Lueni has great power. No sooner
had I freed him on the ice than he commanded Kalak, the mist bear, to
pick him up and bring him back to the village. They are coming now, and
though there is no way to prevent the devil from escaping and eating the
oil and blubber you furnished, the village can be protected from
Kalak."

Toolah sprang up. He paid no more attention to Chuesandrin, but crawled
out the tunnel and ran to Agtuk's lodge. Other hunters were summoned,
with their dogs and lances.

Wind raged through the village, bearing a few flakes of snow with it.
The clouded sky blotted the starlight as Agtuk addressed the assembled
hunters.

"Kalak has been sighted on the ice. She may be here any minute. We must
either kill her or drive her away; the mist bear cannot be permitted to
enter the village. If she comes for the purpose I think, we will not
need dogs to seek her out. Take them back to your lodges, and return
here."

They waited in the darkness. Snow fell harder. Then the storm abated for
a moment and stars shone in the murky sky. The hunters strained forward,
gripping their lances. A few dozen feet away, Kalak appeared.

Then, as suddenly as she had come, she was gone.




  _Chapter VII_

  DEN IN THE SNOW


As soon as she drew nearer the village, the little white fox became
obviously reluctant to follow Kalak any farther. For a way he continued
to pad along behind her; Kalak was a good provider and the little fox
had no wish to lose a huntress so keen. Then they came very near the
village, with its attendant strong smells of men, and dogs, and seal
oil, and burning lamps, and refuse, and the fox sat resolutely down. He
did not mind facing the ice pack and all its dangers, but it was sheer
madness deliberately to enter a village where human beings lived.

Uncaring that her constant shadow had deserted her, Kalak continued.
She smelled Agtuk, Toolah, Nalee, Moostantin, and the others who had
taken part in the killing of her cub. The big bear snarled savagely as
she strode forward.

She knew that the men awaited her in a body. Without doubt they would be
armed. Men were always armed with lances or bows and arrows, or both.
Kalak did not hesitate. She, too, was armed with strength and fury. If
the men were all assembled in one place, that meant only that she would
not have to seek out each individual.

Then, for the first time, she faltered. She stopped, standing perfectly
still while driving snow swirled about her and the lashing wind clawed
at her white coat. She stood for a few minutes, using her nose to locate
exactly every man who faced her.

The snow cleared. Kalak saw the assembled hunters as clearly as they saw
her. For a second she faced them, roaring her hate and defiance. Then
she whirled and was away, running in the opposite direction as fast as
she could go. The opportunity to avenge her cub had presented itself,
and strangely, Kalak had not taken it. She had run away.

As soon as she had put a safe distance between the hunters and herself,
Kalak stopped again. She stood motionless in the darkness, while wind
roared in from the pack and snow pelted her. She swung her head back and
forth, testing the wind, while she strove to discover whether or not she
was pursued. If so, she would have to run again.

No dog barked. No hunter's scent came to her. Save for the wind's snarl
there was no sound. But Kalak jerked her head about.

Twenty feet away, almost invisible in the storm, the little white fox
sat with his tail curled about his legs. His was the same friendly
manner, the same fawning willingness to do or be anything if Kalak would
only let him follow her and live on whatever she did not want of the
seals she caught.

Kalak pounced, leaping at the fox so swiftly that her great bulk seemed
a cloud of snow blown by the storm. The little fox yelped in amazement
and leaped out of the way. Kalak sprang again and again, slapping with
her paws, furious in her determination to catch and kill the little
creature. She could not, but her intentions were very plain.
Crestfallen, filled with sudden fear of this protector he had followed
so long, the little fox streaked away into the night. He had understood
and forgiven the other time Kalak had tried to catch him, for then she
had been hungry. This he could neither understand nor forgive. Kalak
was fat and heavy; hunting had been good. And, though the fox knew that
he could never be her friend, he had tried in every way he could to be
inoffensive. In spite of that he had been ignominiously attacked and
cast out. The little fox set off across the ice pack, hoping to find a
more reasonable bear to which he might attach himself.

Kalak watched him go, and turned away satisfied. She wanted nothing near
her, not even the harmless little fox.

She turned west, loping easily along the shore, with its scant covering
of snow, and placing distance between herself and Agtuk's village. She
knew the prowess of the Eskimo hunters. Their arrows were swift and
their lances sharp. She must put herself beyond the farthest reach of
any of the Endorah. Far from seeking them out with the deliberate
intention of doing battle, the big ice bear would henceforth be so
all-wise and cunning that there would be no possibility of an Eskimo
hunter even finding her tracks in the snow.

She travelled steadily for hours, staying on shore because of the many
scents that blew in from the ice pack. She did not fear the seals she
smelled, but the new mission upon which she had embarked was so
delicate and all-important that even the seals might bring harm to her
if they knew. Twice, when she scented other bears, she swung much
farther inland until their scent was gone. If she had to she would
fight, but battle at this time would be only the last desperate resort.
She dared take no chances.

Fifty miles from Agtuk's village, the bear finally turned directly
inland. The storm gradually subsided. Pale stars flickered above her and
lighted the snow-covered way she must travel. Shadowy shapes moved on
the snow ahead of her.

Kalak stopped, begrudging the time she needed to do so, but suspicious
of these creatures as she had become of everything. They were caribou, a
tiny segment of a vast herd that was wintering here, eating lichens.
Kalak roared and sprang forward, and the caribou pounded the earth with
thudding hooves as they dashed out of her way.

Far from the familiar ice pack, the big bear continued up the shallow
gully in which she now found herself. Emerging from it, she met the main
herd of caribou, a hundred thousand animals gathered in little bands of
from two to fifty and seeming to cover solidly the valley Kalak had
chosen. They watched nervously as she passed, and split to give her
passageway. The caribou were more curious than alarmed. Polar bears
were seldom found so far from the sea lanes, and even more seldom did
they hunt caribou. The feeding little bands dropped back and resumed
grazing as soon as Kalak passed.

Fretful because she was unable to get away from them, but now pressed
for time and lacking a choice, for an hour Kalak made her way through
the grazing herd. The little bands became more scattered and fewer in
number as she came to the far flank of the herd.

There were wolves here, a horde of big, rapacious killers that were
following the caribou. Kalak saw a pack pull down and begin tearing at a
bull. Though her hatred for wolves would ordinarily have tempted her to
swerve and drive these from their kill, now she went carefully around
them.

Far up the valley Kalak found the kind of country she sought. The hills
were treeless. The wind that snarled almost constantly about the hills
had whisked such snow as had fallen on the heights into the valleys or
into sheltered places. The bear approached such a drift, and immediately
made ready to retreat if she could but to fight if she must.

The two beasts that faced her in the starlight had humped their backs
and fluffed their fur until they looked much bigger than they were. In
the gloom, their bare fangs gleamed startlingly white. They snarled and
growled continuously, and made little savage rushes which they always
checked when they were less than halfway to Kalak. The pair were
barren-ground grizzlies, a mother and her half-grown cub. Having not yet
gone into hibernation, they were seeking a suitable den.

Kalak backed away. Unwilling to fight, she was perfectly able to do so
if necessary. Probably, if it was a finish fight, she could kill both
grizzlies, for she was bigger and stronger. But she had no desire to do
battle. She turned and ran, leaving the sheltered drifts to the two
grizzlies.

Finally she slowed to a fast walk, a mile-eating pace that took her
swiftly into the hills. There was little time left. She must find what
she sought very soon, and it must be the right place. At last she
reached an area that seemed devoid of all other life. There were no
caribou here, no wolves, no musk oxen, not even hares or lemmings.

Kalak climbed another wind-swept hill and travelled around to the drift
in its lee. She hesitated for a long while, assuring herself that
nothing was near and that nothing had followed. Then she began to
burrow into the drift.

She scooped snow until she had penetrated to the grass with which the
hill was covered in summer, and then turned around and around until she
had trampled a chamber large enough to accommodate her comfortably. She
was quiet for a long while, looking through the hole she had made and at
the small patch of star-scattered sky she could see beyond it. The wind
that screeched around the hill and straight into her burrow carried no
scent of anything harmful.

Clouds stole across the sky. The stars were blotted out and soft snow
whirled down. Kalak's tension relaxed. The wind was welcome, a friendly
thing that whisked more snow around the hill and into the burrow she had
scraped. Already the tunnel's mouth was becoming narrow, as more snow
piled into it. After an hour the entrance was closed entirely.

Deep under the drift, Kalak lay in a black den of her own making. But it
was a cosy den. Bitter cold could find no entrance nor could harsh winds
beat in. It was a warm and comfortable place, a fitting nursery for the
three tiny cubs which, within four hours after Kalak entered the den,
mewled beside her and avidly sought food.

The cubs, two females and one male, were no longer than small rabbits.
Their eyes were closed, their ears only pink buds on top of their oddly
kitten-like heads. Their feet were curled little stems that seemed far
too small for their fat bodies.

Kalak cuddled them softly to her. She nuzzled them and fondled them
softly with a paw that was capable of smashing a seal's spine, until the
new-born cubs stopped squirming to lie still. Their baby brains were
still too young to grasp the significance of their mother's caress, but
they could sense her warmth and care. That was enough.

While winter raged outside, and all male polar bears as well as those
females without cubs stalked seals on the gloomy ice pack, Kalak lay in
the snow den with her cubs. She slept a great deal of the time, but
never so soundly that she could not come instantly awake if the wind
outside blew a different tone, or one of the cubs whimpered in an
abnormal pitch, or if an unusual scent penetrated the den. She had
nothing to eat, but now was demonstrated the wisdom of that instinct
which had bade her catch and eat as many seals as she could. While
crossing from the dead whale to the Bay of Seals, Kalak had eaten three
times her normal amount. As a result her body bore an unusually thick
coating of fat. She had food in reserve, enough to sustain both herself
and the cubs.

And, now that she again had cubs, she again knew fear. Always she had
lost her young; never had she reared one to maturity. In the darkness of
the winter-locked den, Kalak caressed her three cubs with a deep
maternal determination. For them she had fled from the men she hated,
had hidden herself away from all other life.

She must not lose them!




  _Chapter VIII_

  FIRST LESSONS


In the winter-locked, lightless den, even while she remembered the fate
of her other young, Kalak planned ways and means to keep her new-born
cubs safe.

Wolves could not harm her but, from this time until they were big enough
to defend themselves, the cubs would be at the mercy of a hungry pack or
even a hungry wolf. The Eskimo hunters were fierce and relentless; it
was not easy for even a mature bear to escape them once they were on the
trail. The ice itself was a peril, for one of Kalak's former cubs had
been killed by falling ice. Lastly, there was the sputtering launch
which travelled faster than the most powerful bear could swim.

In the darkness Kalak stirred fretfully. She needn't fear wolves as long
as she stayed near enough the cubs to protect them, but there was always
a possibility that one or all of the cubs might stray. If she had to she
would fight Eskimos, but they were a terrible enemy whom it was best to
avoid. Probably she could protect her cubs from falling ice if she
always led them only on paths which seemed safe to her. But she did not
know what to do should another launch come; she knew of no defense
against such a thing.

She had already decided that she would take her babies far into the
pack. Like all polar bears, Kalak was a wanderer. She had ranged fifty
or more miles from shore, and knew that good hunting lay in the pack's
depths. Moreover, that far out, she had never seen any wolf, Eskimo, or
ship. In the far reaches of the pack there was only ice to contend with.

She rose to stretch herself, and the cubs scrambled about her feet as
she brushed the den's top with her shaggy back. The top of the den had
been snow when Kalak entered, but heat from her own body had melted the
snow so that, for a while, water had dripped around her. Then ice had
formed on the top and sides, and Kalak and her cubs were locked in an
ice-sheathed cavern.

The mother bear lay down again, nosing each of the cubs in turn to
reassure herself of their presence and safety. She brushed her muzzle
across them, licking each cub's back gently.

One of the cubs crawled to her, felt with questing paws, fastened them
about Kalak's neck, and bit with baby teeth. Kalak rolled over, careful
not to crush the frolicking cub, and grasped it gently with her huge
paws. As she played with her cub she grunted ecstatically, and the other
two cubs joined in. Tiny squeals and excited snarls filled the den.

Kalak got up suddenly, careful to roll the cubs gently from her even as
she arose. She thought she had heard something. The den seemed exactly
as it had been, but subtle changes were taking place outside and,
penetrating beneath the drift where Kalak had denned, had a voice all
their own. Kalak stood tensely, her ponderous paws braced. Sensing and
reflecting their mother's attitude, the cubs were quiet. Muffled by the
intervening snow, the wind's snarling came into the den as a soft and
distant hum. The wind was a customary thing, but this time it had a
different pitch.

There was no other noise. Kalak lay down again, unworried but restless.
She did not drop into one of the prolonged naps which had helped to
while away the long hours spent in the den. A great uneasiness possessed
her. The den seemed suddenly to have become too small and too warm.

The cubs swarmed over her. Kalak let them play while she listened and
waited. All tendency to sleep had departed. She must lie awake because
the season was changing, and its sensed change forbade sleeping.

Again Kalak rose to turn restlessly around in the cramped den. She shook
herself and, for the first time since she had entered the den, felt
hungry. She licked the ice that had formed around the den and ran her
long tongue out to lick her chops.

Twenty-four hours later her hunger was a nagging force that would not
let her be quiet. Nor could she longer fail to heed the subtle changes
outside, the coming of spring. It was time for action.

Kalak rose and strode forward, turning her head aside as she crashed
into the wall of the den. A great heap of snow and ice fell about her,
but did not close the hole she had smashed. The mother bear stood
blinking at the sun, which once more had risen in the sky. She gazed
down the hill and across the ragged snow patches at budding grass and
shrubs. The wind still blew cold, but spring had definitely come.

Kalak turned to look at the cubs, who crowded past her into the opening
she had smashed and looked with awed eyes at the great world that lay
beyond them. Their world, as far as they had known it, consisted of a
hole under a snow drift. They were afraid of what they saw now, and
fearfully slunk back into the den.

Nudging the cubs with her muzzle, pushing them with her paws, she forced
them through the door of the den and into the snow outside. The cubs
crowded close together for the comfort and feeling of protection they
received from each other. Whimpering plaintively, they ran back and sat
between their mother's forelegs. Feeling safer there, they pricked up
their ears and took a lively interest in a caribou cow that was coming
down the opposite hill. The cubs ran delighted tongues out as the cow
stopped and bawled. A dozen more caribou followed her down the hill.

Pleading, cajoling, and butting them with her nose when they were very
obstinate, Kalak coaxed her cubs farther away from the den. Interest
gradually replaced the babies' fear. At first afraid to leave the den,
they now followed Kalak, slowly because they were unable all at once to
absorb so much that was fascinating. The cubs stopped to investigate
dried grass, stones, snow, flowers, patches of dirt, trickles of water,
and everything else that lay in their path. They saw no reason to move
fast. Their world had been a narrow and restricted den, which was
satisfactory enough at the time. But now that fear was gone, and there
was so much to see and do, they were in no hurry.

Patiently, and always gently, Kalak led or followed her babies. She
never moved more than six feet away and she did not urge them because it
was well to ease them gradually into this new realm. To take them
bluntly into anything while they were still so small--they were about
the size of large cats--might invite danger. The cubs knew nothing about
the life they must lead. Until Kalak was able to teach them some arctic
lore she must remain doubly cautious.

While the three cubs clustered about an outcropping of rock, and scraped
it with their paws, Kalak ate profusely of the dried grass growing on
the hillside. The male cub reared with his paws on the rock and bent his
tiny head to sniff. He ran his pink tongue out to taste the outcropping,
and licked his chops. Looking around at his mother, the cub came over
to taste some grass. He grasped a mouthful, bit it off with baby teeth,
chewed slowly, and spat it out. Impatiently asking for more palatable
food, he butted his mother's flank.

Kalak obliged, and immediately the other two cubs ran to her. She
stretched out in the sun-warmed grass, content but wary. The wind
brought her no scent of danger and she could see nothing abnormal, but
she dared not relax. She must be ready to repel or evade whatever came.

The mother bear swung her head suddenly, and stood up. Now there was
something in the wind, a new scent that had not been there before and
more appetizing than dried grass. Eagerly she walked farther down the
hill and swung about to await the vanguard of a horde of migrating
lemmings.

These small, short-tailed arctic mice were suddenly everywhere. Theirs
was a wild and crazy impulse, a mass hysteria that bade them leave the
place where they were for another place which they sought only through
instinct. Foxes raced at will among them, gulping down as many as they
could hold. Owls swooped over the migration, taking what they wished.
Wolves, for once finding lazy hunting, moved almost indolently,
snapping up the little creatures. Still the mass of lemmings moved on.
There was no stopping them and no turning them aside. Those that
survived the various meat-eaters who attacked them would continue their
migration until they drowned in the polar sea.

Kalak walked to meet them, the cubs following nervously at her heels.
This was also something new; until now the living creatures in their
world had consisted of their mother, themselves, and the little herd of
caribou. The cubs crowded anxiously against their mother's ponderous
legs, puzzled by the onslaught of small, living things but not fearing
them as long as Kalak stood her ground.

Kalak lowered her head, caught up a lemming, and swallowed it. She ate
another, and another, enjoying the first taste of flesh she had had
since going into the den. The cub who had taken a mouthful of grass when
he saw Kalak doing the same snuffled at a passing lemming, then opened
his baby jaws to catch one.

There was an outraged squeal. Bitten on the lip, the cub jerked his head
and snapped the lemming away from him. Kalak whirled, roaring and
bristling. There was nothing to see except the migrating horde, and
nothing to be smelled on the wind. Kalak licked her wounded youngster
solicitously and went back to eating lemmings. Her belly filled, she
started down the valley. Now the cubs followed her willingly. To them,
their mother was all-powerful. They need fear nothing as long as she was
with them.

Kalak swung about and headed resolutely for the sea. The lemmings were
merely something to stay her appetite until she could reach open water
and the seals upon which she was accustomed to feed. Resting when the
cubs were no longer able to travel, but pushing them as hard as she
could, Kalak came finally to the shore.

High winds and violent storms had already broken the ice at this point.
For as far as Kalak could see there was only open water. The big ice
bear stopped to ponder. Storms here would also have raged much farther
to the west; she was unlikely to find the pack as quickly by travelling
west as she was by going east in the direction of Agtuk's village.

However, she was a long way from the village and there was no special
risk involved in travelling toward it. Above all, she wished to get her
cubs into the safety of the pack. The sooner she was able to do so, the
better. Kalak headed east.

Late in the afternoon they reached the ice. Although it was piled high
on the shore, there was open water farther out, where the pack ice
floated free. Kalak walked out, going around hummocks and ridges which
the cubs could not climb over. She came to the lead that separated pack
and shore ice.

Kalak dived cleanly, and immediately surfaced to swim beside the ice
upon which the cubs remained. Always eager to imitate, the little male
belly-splashed into the water, went down, and came sputtering to the
surface. He swam in terrified circles, with his paws splashing still
more water into his nose. Gradually becoming more at ease in this new
element, he settled down to swim gracefully. Delighted grunts burst from
him. He circled around and around, demonstrating his prowess for the
timid cubs who dared not join him.

The mother bear climbed out on the ice and snuffled at her two babies.
Getting behind one of them, she pushed firmly with her muzzle. The cub
skidded across the ice, tumbled in, and squalled as the water closed
over her head. Kalak pushed the other cub in.

For a few minutes they swam clumsily. Finding their sea legs, they
circled more smoothly. Kalak joined them. Side by side, the three cubs
swam with her across the open lead.

Nearing the pack ice, Kalak selected a worn place that sloped into the
water. Scrambling and raking with their claws, the female cubs scrambled
out. The male stared resentfully, then struck out for the ice he had
just left. Swimming was a wonderful sport and he wanted more of it.

Stroking easily, Kalak circled around him. She brought up her heavy paw,
smack against her disobedient son's fat rear. The cub squalled,
described a graceful arc that carried him out of the water and back into
it, and squalled a second time. Kalak spanked him again. Obedience was
the first law of survival. The cubs must do her bidding and, if they had
to learn the hard way that she should be obeyed, then the hard way it
would be. The male cub climbed out on the ice and padded meekly along.

From ahead came the rich odor of basking seals.

Now Kalak led the cubs, and when they would have crowded ahead of her
she cuffed them back. They followed wonderingly, not able to hide their
surprise because a once gentle and indulgent mother had suddenly become
so harsh. Never before had she cuffed them. The cubs could not know
that, at last, their education was to begin. But they would soon learn.

The scent of seal became stronger, nearer. Kalak turned as the male
cub, who also smelled the enticing scent, tried to rush past. She cuffed
him soundly. His more timid sisters stood by and watched. They could and
would learn from their brother's punishment. If Kalak did not wish to be
passed or crowded, then it was best to respect her wishes.

Kalak read the air currents. There was nothing in them that foretold
danger, so she turned and looked at the cubs sternly. Something unheard
but not misunderstood passed between them. The cubs remained in a little
depression while Kalak went on alone.

She stalked easily, and yet swiftly, for she was complete mistress of
this kind of hunting. Flat against the ice, motionless when the seal
raised its head but sliding forward when it napped, Kalak quickly made
her kill. She carried the seal back to the cubs, who sniffed
interestedly at it and then watched her eat, afterward snuggling against
her while she rested on the ice pack.

Kalak led her cubs steadily seaward, but now that she was again on the
pack some of her fear and forebodings left her. This was ice, and she
felt at home on it. Her cubs were safer than they had been on land
because only when they could not find caribou did the wolf packs venture
into the frozen sea to hunt seals. Nevertheless she could not afford to
relax. She was not yet beyond the limits visited by Eskimo hunters.

The second day out Kalak stopped and swung her head directly into the
wind. She stood a full thirty seconds, then began to run. When a cub
faltered she nudged it forward with her nose.

Far off she had heard a dog bark, and the wind brought her the plain
scent of the Eskimo hunters who were with them.




  _Chapter IX_

  FLIGHT FROM DANGER


Kalak reared, standing on her hind legs in order to snuffle currents
that had been above her when she was on all fours. Very faint and far
away, but certainly on the ice pack, the dog barked again. Kalak got the
scent of other dogs, and of six men. Among them she identified Agtuk,
Toolah, and Nalee. The other three were strangers.

There was another scent, too, that of a mother polar bear with one cub.
The pack of dogs broke into full cry. There came the hoarse shout of a
man. Kalak dropped back to the ice and looked anxiously at her cubs.

She knew as well as though she were present what was happening across
the pack. The men and dogs had struck the fresh trail of the mother bear
and her cub. They had followed, and brought their quarry to bay. The
mother bear was backed against some hummock or ridge trying desperately
to defend her baby while the men closed in with their lances.

Herding the cubs ahead of her, bunting them with her nose whenever they
lagged, Kalak started deeper into the pack. She had never met an Eskimo,
or even run across a sign of one, more than ten miles from shore. But
she was still only halfway to that limit. She should have travelled
harder and farther. There would be plenty of time to rest when her cubs
were safe in the depths of the pack.

One of the female cubs stopped to lick at the new snow across which they
travelled, and Kalak smacked her soundly. The cub skidded sideways into
the snow, picked herself up, and ran on. The cubs were fast learning
that there would be no arguments with their mother. If they did not do
what she wanted done when she wanted it punishment was certain to be
swift and severe. In her mind there could be no middle course; the
penalty for disobedience might be death.

Across the pack, the cry of howling dogs subsided. The wind had
changed, so that Kalak got neither the scent of the hunters nor that of
the dogs. But still she urged them on.

Bigger and stronger than either of his sisters and therefore able to run
ahead of them, the male cub had been leading the procession. Suddenly he
braced his feet and stopped so suddenly that he almost slid into a cake
of ice. In his eagerness to see better, the cub stood up, rearing his
small length until he looked like a white teddy bear standing on the
ice.

With an immense bound Kalak leaped over her cubs and placed herself in
front of them. Her neck was stretched, her head bent. The fur on her
back ruffled as she snarled at the intruder who waited calmly beside a
hummock.

It was her mate, the big male whom Kalak had last seen in the Bay of
Seals. He had been far out on the pack enjoying a lazy and fat winter,
but had become tired of isolation and loneliness and set out on another
journey. Coolly he stood looking at Kalak and her cubs.

With a gurgling snarl Kalak warned him away. Walking between the cubs
and her mate, the female continued toward the farther reaches of the ice
pack. After the cubs and mother bear had passed, the mate swung in
behind to follow them. He dropped a little farther back when Kalak
whirled and snapped at him, but continued to follow. The big male wanted
companionship and, even though he was obviously not welcome, he
preferred Kalak's company to that of any other bear. He jogged
contentedly along, not trying to come any nearer but falling no farther
behind. A lonely gull appeared, wheeled over them a few times, and
flapped away. Seals slid hastily into the water as they approached.

When Kalak stopped suddenly, the big male halted too. The wind had
shifted again, and now was blowing from the shore straight out onto the
pack. It carried to Kalak fresh news of the Eskimo hunters and their
dogs. She stood a moment more, verifying with her nose the exact
location of the hunters. A dog barked. Men yelled.

Kalak swung about to push the cubs forward. The hunters were on her
trail and had released their dogs. Kalak had dealt with Eskimo dogs
before. She knew their speed, their abilities, and their undeniable
courage. She also knew that dogs could run much faster than her small
cubs.

She must still try to run away, to find some haven for the cubs before
the pack overtook them. There was nothing else to do. The hunters with
their stabbing lances would follow the dogs as closely as possible. If
she let herself be overtaken by them, Kalak knew that she would have
little chance. Certainly the cubs would go down. They were far too young
to defend themselves, and any dog in the onrushing pack could easily
kill all three.

Forced to run too fast and given no rest, the cubs began to pant. Their
pink tongues lolled out as they gasped for breath. Kalak swung her head
to reassure herself that her mate was keeping his distance, and butted
the cubs harder. No matter what they wished, they had to run. It would
be death to do otherwise.

Ten minutes later the dogs swept upon them.

Led by Natkus, the screaming pack hurtled around an ice hillock and
flung themselves forward. Kalak herded her cubs toward a spot where she
could defend them, while the big male bear was taking the brunt of the
assault. Surrounded by dogs, he swung his sledge-hammer paws at them.

But the dogs were experienced bear hunters. Those in front kept well
away from the embattled male. Others dived in from the sides and back.
When Kalak's mate whirled to deal with them the dogs that had been in
front attacked.

Kalak waited to see no more. Her mate was momentarily holding the pack.
The men were not in sight. She seized the opportunity to drive her cubs
farther along in the direction she wished to take them.

They reached an almost level expanse of ice and started across. The
wind, swooping across this smooth ice, had whirled the snow from it and
made easy going. Hot and resentful, but still running both because they
were afraid and because they knew that they would be spanked if they
tried to stop, the cubs raced along. Kalak followed, bunting freely with
her nose and permitting no lagging.

One of the female cubs was nearly done and could not possibly run much
farther. Kalak thrust her nose between her laboring daughter's rear legs
and hoisted her skillfully along.

Hope began to struggle with the terror and desperation she felt. Beyond
the smooth ice there were more hummocks and ridges, and beyond them she
smelled water. She knew that, compared to her, dogs were clumsy
swimmers. The hunters could not swim at all. If the lead was big enough
she could surely find safety in it.

She heard the pack race out onto the smooth ice and the shrill scream of
a stricken dog. Her mate was fighting a running battle and, impeded by
the dogs, was falling farther behind. Then Kalak heard the shouts of
men. The hunters, coming fast, were almost on the heels of their dogs.

Kalak came to the open lead. Instead of the big water she had hoped to
reach, the lead was scarcely fifty yards wide. Merely a rambling pond in
the ice pack, it began at a sloping wall of smooth ice, and, a quarter
of a mile away, ended at some ragged hummocks. At her feet, a shelf of
ice hung a few inches over the water. That was all.

Kalak swung her head to locate the oncoming hunters, and dived cleanly.
Unhesitating, the cubs dived with her. They swam side by side, looking
to her for guidance, and still did not hesitate when Kalak went under
the ice shelf. When she surfaced, only her head broke water but there
was room to breathe. Rising beside her, concealed by the ice shelf, the
cubs floated quietly.

They heard the scraping of clawed feet on the shelf above them, and saw
the big male dive into the lead. Right behind him, the dogs flung
themselves into the water and, still yelling, set out after their
sighted quarry. Kalak's mate climbed out on the opposite ice pack.
Seconds later Natkus and three other dogs had emerged from the lead and
were renewing the chase. One by one, as they swam the lead and climbed
out, the rest of the pack joined the battle.

Kalak saw her mate scramble to the top of a knoll, and could not miss
seeing the red streamlet that flowed down his shoulder. Somewhere on the
back trail a dog had leaped in, or a fast-running hunter had come up
with the big male and thrust his lance truly. The screaming dogs yelled
their fury as they tried to climb up to the top of the knoll.

Then the hunters arrived. The bears heard the soft thudding of their
sealskin boots on the ice shelf, and men's voices.

"There's the big one!" cried Toolah. "But what of Kalak, the mist bear,
and her three cubs?"

"She has gone on, or again changed herself into mist," another replied.
"Come! Let us hurry before more dogs are killed! The big one is a devil
in himself!"

The hunters ran around to the near end of the lead and threaded their
way among the broken hummocks. Their lances ready, they reappeared on
the opposite side of the lead. From the top of his knoll, the male saw
them coming and tensed himself. He was a warrior going to his last fight
and knew it, but there was no fear within him. A king of the ice, he
had run as far as he was going to run.

In an easy little leap, the big bear left the knoll and pounced down
among the dogs. Taken by surprise, the pack yelled in fear. A dog flew
into the air to fall nearly at the feet of the oncoming hunters. Another
skidded out of the pack to lie inert against an ice cake. Yelling
hysterically, the rest rallied and flung themselves on both flanks of
the enraged male as he charged straight at the hunters.

They thrust home with their lances, but the big bear did not stop. Like
a matador measuring a bull for the kill, Agtuk drove his lance deep in
the bear's chest. He kept coming, and was almost among the hunters when
he finally faltered and sank down on the ice.

Long after the hunters had gone, Kalak led her cubs from beneath the ice
shelf. They crossed the lead, climbed out on the ice, and passed the
place where their mate and father had died so valiantly. Tarrying only a
moment to sniff the bloody ice and snarl savagely, Kalak swung west. She
was far out on the ice pack now, and it was unlikely that there would be
more hunters, but she must take no chances.

The short spring night had descended when Kalak finally stopped to
catch and eat a seal. She lay on the ice while the cubs snuggled against
her and slept. The mother bear dozed only in snatches. Her head was
almost constantly up as she searched the wind for danger. The cubs were
at the same time her great treasure and her grave responsibility. No
matter what happened, they must live.




  _Chapter X_

  THE WALRUS HERD


Kalak knew that open water lay south and farther west, that hunters
roamed to the southeast, and that the wildest parts of the ice pack
stretched as far north as she might walk. She intended to take her cubs
deeper into the pack, but wanted to be farther west before starting
north. Even though it was unlikely, there was always a possibility of
encountering more hunters if she started directly north at this point.
So Kalak continued to wander west.

But she was in no hurry. This was a pleasant place in which to linger. A
steady northeast wind that never blew strongly still kept the pack from
becoming uncomfortably warm. There were plenty of open leads and seals
for the taking. Out here, far from shore, the ice was comparatively
smooth, with few hummocks or ridges.

There was no lack of food, and the cubs were safe. Because they were,
Kalak permitted them more leeway. She never wandered far from her babies
and always knew exactly what they were doing and where they were, but
there was no longer a need for stern discipline.

Well-fed and healthy, the cubs took advantage of their freedom to
indulge in every possible play and antic. Always the little male took
the lead; he was the instigator of everything. He remained larger than
his sisters, more active, and possessed an insatiable curiosity.

Kalak lay comfortably on a cake of ice and watched her son ramble toward
a melted pool that lay among little hillocks. His two sisters, more than
ever like animated white teddy bears, followed him, looking back from
time to time to assure themselves of their mother's presence.

Kalak raised her head to watch. The male cub was impetuous, prone to
rush in first and investigate afterward, and Kalak worried about that
tendency in her son because she knew that one day it would lead him
into trouble.

However, now he merely walked down to the pool, lapped some water, waded
in, and started swimming when he reached a depth too deep for wading. He
dived, reappearing ten feet from where he had gone under and looked back
at his sisters. They still hesitated, but were unwilling to be left out
of the fun. Their brother was having a glorious time, and so far,
nothing had appeared to endanger him. The two female cubs rushed to join
him.

They swam around and around the pool, diving and rolling, chasing each
other and scrambling eagerly with tiny paws and baby jaws as they
wrestled. The little male ducked both his sisters, then was set upon by
both, and struck out for the edge of the pool.

The male cub scrambled out of the water, ascended a sloping ridge, and
stood looking down at his sisters. Letting himself go, he rolled his
butter-fat body down the slope and splashed into the pool. Immediately
he swam back and climbed the same slope. Again he slid into the pool.
After watching him a moment, and learning the technique of ice sliding,
his sisters joined in. Sometimes singly, and sometimes tumbling
together, the three rolled and splashed into the pool.

Finally, tired and hungry, they climbed out and pounced upon Kalak. She
rolled over to let them feed, and tumbled the little male gently between
her paws. He seldom remained tired for long, and was usually in a mood
for more play. Presently he, too, sighed, yawned, and lay down to sleep
with his sisters.

After a while Kalak got up and went forth to hunt. She had taught the
cubs to stay where she left them while she stalked seals, and no longer
had to worry about them. She still did not like to get too far away, and
as a consequence she had to choose her seals with care.

Presently she located a seal lying beside an open lead just beyond the
pressure ridge that concealed the cubs. Carefully, not showing herself
and making absolutely no noise, she slunk across the ice. Kalak had done
this so many times that it was routine, and experience had given her a
hunter's knowledge of what to expect.

She knew that she would catch this seal. It was five feet from the edge
of the ice, and not over-cautious. Raising its head every minute or two,
it would look lackadaisically about and then go back to sleep. Kalak
advanced swiftly to an easy kill.

Then, almost as she was ready to strike, the male cub scooted past her,
straight at the seal. Wriggling as easily as though it were sliding on
oil, the seal slipped into the water and dived. The male cub stood
open-mouthed, staring in perplexity at the spreading ripples that rolled
across the surface of the water.

The next second he tried frantically to run, but was too late. Roaring
her anger, scolding her son in every way she knew, Kalak was upon him.
She raised a huge forepaw and spanked him smartly. Again and again she
struck, bringing the flat of her paw across her son's fat rear. Bawling,
he raced back to his sisters. Kalak raised her paw to strike again,
thought better of it, grunted sourly, and moved off to find another
seal.

She made a kill, ate, and watched the scavenging gulls swoop to what was
left when she lay down to sleep. Her chastised cub crawled humbly up to
her and snuggled down with his two sisters.

    *    *    *    *    *

Always Kalak worked westward. As soon as she had gone far enough she
would swing north. There was an area there, fifty miles wide by a
hundred miles long, where the pack ice moved just enough to keep leads
open all winter. Seals were abundant, because the water beneath the ice
was choked with shrimp and fish. No human hunter had ever gone there.

Kalak had that place in mind as an adequate school for her cubs. They
would have space in which to gratify the polar bear's natural tendency
to wander. There would be plenty of food, and no enemies. Day by day
Kalak travelled toward that haven.

Finally they came to the edge of the ice and the beginning of open sea.
Wave-topped water rolled ahead, and lapped the irregular line of ice.
Ice cakes of varying sizes tossed about in the sea.

Kalak swung northwest, following the sea line but keeping back from the
water. Eventually, she neither knew nor particularly cared when, she
would reach unbroken ice where nothing except seals and polar bears
could venture.

Seals were plentiful here and Kalak went out to hunt one. As soon as she
departed, the male cub left his timid sisters and started in a direction
opposite to that taken by Kalak. He had smarted too much and too long to
again risk spoiling one of Kalak's hunts, but he could go hunting by
himself.

On the edge of the ice, very near the sea, the cub stopped to look.
Lying on the ice and playing in the water just ahead of him was a herd
of walrus. The cub looked hesitantly at the huge bull and the great
cows, and stared back toward his sisters. Then he caught sight of
several calves among the walrus herd and his confidence returned. He
might not be able to catch a big one, but surely he could bring down one
of the smaller ones. Cocksure, secure in his own opinion of himself, the
cub stalked a walrus calf.

He pounced upon it and sank his claws into its hide while he tried to
bite with baby teeth. The startled calf, dragging the cub with it,
struggled toward its angered mother. Lumbering over the ice, she struck
out with one of her great flippers. The cub's breath was forced from him
in one great gasp and he was knocked into the sea. One by one, splashing
prodigiously, the rest of the walrus herd slid into the water.

Thoroughly aroused, knowing that one of the calves had been in danger,
the old bull charged toward the cub.

    *    *    *    *    *

Kalak stalked and killed her seal, and carried it back to the place
where she had left her cubs. Instant panic seized her. All three cubs
had been here when she left, but now the male was gone. Kalak dropped
the seal and, with her nose to the ice, loped swiftly along on her
youngster's trail.

She raised her head to see the walrus herd, and her cub within half a
yard of one of the calves. He pounced upon it, clinging with baby claws
and teeth as the little walrus instinctively struggled toward its
mother. Kalak saw the mother come to the rescue, and she watched the cub
hurtle into the sea.

Before the cub struck the water, Kalak was running. Her reflexes and
reactions were so swift that she needed only a split second's pause on
the edge of the ice to grasp the situation.

Kalak sprang from the ice, and landed exactly in the short and rapidly
closing space between her cub and the charging bull. Even as she struck
the water, she turned to fling out her claws and fight.

They came together, the enraged bull who was fighting for his herd and
the mother bear who would battle to the death for her baby. Kalak sank
her claws deep into the bull's wrinkled skin, and sought for a hold with
her jaws. She found one in the short, fat neck, and felt her fangs sink
deep into leathery skin and flesh. The bull turned to wriggle away.

As soon as he did, Kalak relaxed her hold and let him go. Pivoting in
the water, she swam back to her cub. Still half senseless, gasping for
breath, he paddled weakly on the surface and strove toward the ice.
Kalak pushed him with her nose, then turned back to face the enraged
herd.

She could see walrus all about. Monstrous things, some of which
outweighed her by half a ton, they made a half circle in the water and
slowly closed in. The big bull's flabby lips quivered. He raised out of
the water, his tusks gleaming in the sun, and bellowed his challenge.

Kalak glanced briefly about, and saw the cub still making his painful
way toward the ice. He had almost reached it, but before he did she
would have to withstand the charge of the walrus herd.

The big bull dribbled water-thinned blood from the scratches and bites
Kalak had inflicted, while his rage mounted. He had not wanted this
fight, but now that he was committed to it he would see it through. The
bull lunged forward.

Slipping to one side, Kalak fastened her claws in his neck and rode with
him. The rest of the herd closed in. Kalak felt a great blow on her
ribs, and an agonizing pain in her chest. She relinquished her hold on
the bull to float breathlessly, then had to dodge as another walrus
charged her. She looked about and saw the cub climbing up on the ice.

Treading water warily, facing the herd, Kalak backed toward the ice
shelf. She reached it, and turned around to draw herself up. As she did
so the bull smashed at her again. One of his tusks left a gaping wound
in her left rear leg.

Safe on the ice, Kalak whirled to snarl at her tormentors. Out in the
sea, the walrus herd rode in the water and stared at her with lusterless
eyes. Kalak waited a moment more; perhaps they would try to come up on
the ice and renew the battle.

They did not come and Kalak turned away to inspect her cub. Bruised and
breathless, badly scared, he shivered on the ice, staring wide-eyed at
the walrus herd. The cub sidled up to Kalak, and whimpered. Kalak licked
his fur, comforting him with her tongue and making no attempt to punish
him. Obviously the cub had already been punished enough.

Kalak glanced again at the walrus herd. Ugly, ungainly beasts, they
waited just off the ice and bobbed up and down in the little swell that
rolled in. They had not sought trouble, and would fight only when it was
forced upon them. Now they waited to see if Kalak would renew her
attack.

She did not. Hers had been a rescue mission only and, now that she had
accomplished it, she was satisfied. Kalak bent her big head around to
her own side, and winced. There was a stabbing pain in her right chest,
and a harsh grating of broken bones. Her rear leg bled profusely,
spilling a red trail on the ice, but already the cold was beginning to
stop the bleeding.

With the one cub walking meekly beside her, Kalak limped back to the
other two. She could not know that four of her right ribs were broken,
or that the charging walrus' stabbing tusk had barely missed a lung. She
only knew that she and the cub were both alive, and her family together
again.

Kalak lay down on her left side and the cubs crowded close to her. The
two females, who seemed to sense that near-tragedy had occurred,
whimpered softly. Kalak comforted them with her tongue, and bore her
pain stoically.

The wind moaned over the ice pack. The sky clouded and a soft snow fell.
The two female cubs stopped whimpering and slept. Their brother lay
beside them, wide-eyed and awed at what had happened. He had learned.
The world was an exciting and wonderful place, but there were some
things in it better left alone. Never again would he stalk or even go
near a walrus of any description. Hereafter, until he was sufficiently
old and wise to look after himself, he would look to his mother for
everything he needed.

Kalak finally rose stiffly and, limping, led her cubs northward along
the arctic sea. Had she been alone she might have rested until she was
strong and well, and until her smashed ribs knitted. But she was not
alone, and the cubs had to eat. They could not do so unless she did.

Kalak left the cubs in hiding and stalked a seal, but she was no longer
the perfect huntress she had been. She could not lie flat on the ice and
hitch herself along; the broken ribs on her right side forbade that.
Kalak was still yards from the seal when it saw her and glided into the
water.

Again and a third time, she tried and failed to catch a seal. Hunger
gnawed at her. She returned and fed the cubs, then rose to stalk again.

It was no use. She could not crawl stealthily enough, or hide herself
well enough, to get near the alert seals. There was no other food; only
seals, polar bears, and an occasional herd of walrus ventured into this
lonely, ice-locked world. There was not even grass which she might eat.
At the next feeding the cubs found little food, and began to whimper.
They tried to feed again, but there was nothing for them. The surly
little male, who had been the cause of it all, laid his ears back and
spat like a kitten at his sisters. The two females crouched close to
Kalak's side, and looked at their brother with puzzled eyes. They had
learned much in their short lives, but this was the first time they had
been hungry.

Kalak tried for still another seal. Crawling along, inching herself
slowly across the ice, she stalked as carefully and as well as she knew
how. Never once did she avert her eyes from the seal she was after. When
her quarry raised its head, she stopped. While the seal napped, Kalak
advanced. She came within pouncing distance and sprang.

Kalak brought her paw down on the seal, and searing pain wracked her
whole body. Unable to strike hard enough, she did not kill her quarry
and the seal squirmed from under her pinioning paw.

The mother bear returned to her babies. The cubs crowded over her,
looking for the milk they had always found but which, strangely, was not
present now. Kalak raised her head to test the wind, and struggled to
her feet.

She left the open sea to start back east, toward the center of the pack.
Puzzled, the cubs crowded her heels. Disregarding the pain each step
caused her, Kalak walked faster.

There was no food that she was able to catch in this land of ice, but
there were other polar bears. Kalak had smelled one, and was going in
search of it.

After a few miles, the male cub stopped suddenly, nose twitching. He had
scented what Kalak had known she would find, a half-eaten seal.
Wandering over the ice with no special destination in mind, the other
polar bear was finding good hunting. He feasted on whatever he wanted of
the blubber and fat and left the remainder on the ice. Kalak came to
such a kill, and growled at the flapping gulls that had settled around
it.

The seal was frozen, and consisted only of what the male bear had not
wanted, but it was food. Kalak crushed the frozen bones with her jaws
and ate them, too. Presently, when she had finished eating and lay down,
there was again milk for the cubs.

For more than a week she followed the other bear, eating his discarded
kills while her hurt body mended. Then, after a while, Kalak found she
could hunt again. She stalked a seal from the water, and killed it in
its basking place on the ice. Kalak feasted, then led her cubs back to
the west. She did not fear now; she could again provide for her family.




  _Chapter XI_

  AGTUK THE HUNTER


Agtuk, Chief of the Endorah, was very dissatisfied. Supposedly he was
the best hunter of his tribe and one who knew more arctic lore than any
other. In truth, there were no others who could match his prowess; Agtuk
accepted that with the modesty which befitted a chief. But none knew
better than he that his strength and skill did not always prevail.

Twice had he met Kalak, the mist bear, face to face, and once he had
even wounded her. He did not blame himself for failing to kill her the
first time, for certainly it was not his fault because the ice had
broken away and carried Kalak into the sea. But the next time Kalak had
walked right into the village and Agtuk hadn't even flicked his lance at
her. Now, he felt, she had eluded him a third time. He should have been
able to corner her and her three cubs, or run her down with the dogs.
But she had simply disappeared.

As he helped skin one of the seven bears the hunting party had brought
down, Agtuk meditated on these failures. Kalak was not an ordinary bear,
and no ordinary hunter need feel shame when she escaped him. But he,
Agtuk, was not an ordinary hunter, either. As he worked, Agtuk
communicated his thoughts to Toolah.

"I have been thinking much of Kalak," he admitted. "I blame myself for
not getting her while she was within reach."

Toolah shrugged. "Kalak is a mist bear," he said simply. "Nobody may be
blamed for not killing a bear which can at will change herself into mist
and float away."

Agtuk said grimly, "And neither can a hunter be blamed for doubting some
of Chuesandrin's fancies. There is no such thing as a mist bear."

"Then what is she?"

"A great and wise ice bear," Agtuk said positively. "When we came up
with her the first time, she might have escaped had she not wished to
defend her young. When she came to the village in the dead of winter,
the second time, she was bent upon revenge. I do not know how she
recovered from the wound I gave her, but she did. I think she ran away
the second time because the birth of her present cubs was near.
Yesterday, when we chased her across the ice, she was cunning enough to
keep her young safe once more. I wish now that I had looked under the
shelf of ice that overhung the lead where the big bear was killed. At
the time I never thought of it."

"Do you think she was under there?" Toolah asked in surprise.

"I am sure only that she was somewhere near-by," Agtuk admitted. "I wish
I had been able to catch her. Everything would have been better."

"Why?" Toolah asked. "We have seven bears now."

"Because of Chuesandrin. Our devil-driver does much good because he
knows many secret potions to make a sick person well. But he wishes to
have complete control of the village and to make even Agtuk answer to
him. At present he cannot do it because our people have plenty and they
are not hungry. What of the next time food is scarce?"

"I do not understand," Toolah said.

"Chuesandrin is very clever," said Agtuk. "He uses his charms as a
hunter uses lances and harpoons, only he works upon thoughts rather than
the body. When people are in want, and desperate, their minds are easy
targets for Chuesandrin's weapons. The next time we find poor hunting,
Chuesandrin will remind the village that I met Kalak twice and was hot
upon her trail a third time. That time she had three small cubs.
Chuesandrin will tell hungry people that Agtuk, who professes to lead
them, cannot even catch a polar bear cub. With hunger gnawing at their
bellies, the villagers may turn to him, for they will know that he
speaks the truth."

"Is that all that troubles you?" Toolah asked shrewdly.

"No," Agtuk confessed. "I have another reason for wishing I had again
met Kalak. She killed one of our hunters. I lead the village, Toolah,
and I am glad to do so. But a chief should be able to overcome a polar
bear, however cunning. For my own peace of mind I wish to find Kalak."

"When are you leaving?" Toolah asked quietly.

"At once."

"It will be a difficult hunt," Toolah pointed out. "All polar bears are
far-wanderers. To find one on the ice pack, especially at this time of
year, will not be an easy matter."

"Kalak has cubs," Agtuk said. "I think she intends to lead them to some
place where they will never meet hunters. Therefore she will certainly
take them to the northwest, and I will find them out on the ice. Once
she leads her cubs to what she considers a safe place, Kalak will stay
there."

"Spring travel is not good," Toolah objected.

"It is not the best," Agtuk conceded, "but I have travelled on spring
ice before."

"How far out do you expect to find her?"

"I do not know."

Toolah hesitated. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.

"I do not like to speak of this," he muttered. "You are our Chief, and
it is not for me to speak. But Chuesandrin says that there are many
devils far out on the ice."

Agtuk laughed. "Chuesandrin's devils are everywhere. But I have seen
none of them when he was not also there. Do not fear for me, Toolah."

He sheathed his knife, looked down at the limp skin of the polar bear,
and kicked thoughtfully at a piece of ice with the toe of his sealskin
boot. Natkus sidled up to him, and Agtuk reached down to scratch the
big dog's ears. He looked toward the west, and said slowly,

"When you get back to the village, Toolah, make certain that Larensa
gets her share of these polar bear skins and such meat as she wishes.
Tell her that I have started on the trail of the mist bear, but that I
will return in time for the caribou hunts."

"Good hunting," Toolah said gravely.

"And good hunting to you," Agtuk replied.

With Natkus padding beside him, he started toward the skin tent that the
hunters had erected on the ice. Agtuk caught up his bow and arrows,
tested his lances, and fastened the best one to the pack that he rolled
in a caribou skin. Properly, he should travel either in a kayak or with
a dog sledge. But this was spring. The water would not be sufficiently
open to permit kayak travel, and there would be enough water on top of
the ice so that travelling with a team and a sledge might be awkward. He
would go lightly burdened.

With no backward look at the camp he set off across the ice. When he
came to the place where they had cornered and killed Kalak's mate, he
looked understandingly at the shelf of ice beside the open lead. Kalak
was indeed all-wise and all-cunning. Instead of swimming the lead, in
full view of the dogs, she had probably lingered under the ice when they
came up. Agtuk grinned faintly. This was the sort of strategy he could
appreciate and understand. He matched himself against a truly great foe.

Agtuk squatted on the ice, and looked westward. When he was a squalling
baby in his fur cradle, a polar bear had snuffled up to the snow house
in which he had been born. It had tried to break in, and Agtuk's father
had killed it with a lance.

His knowledge of polar bears had begun there, and increased ever since.
He knew their mannerisms and their habits--almost the intricate
processes of their minds. Also, he understood the difference in bears.
No two thought or acted alike any more than Agtuk and Toolah, or
Chuesandrin and Nalee, thought and acted in the same way. A primitive
being himself, Agtuk understood the workings of other primitive minds.
He stopped to consider.

When the Endorah Eskimo brought in a whale, he was always careful to
pour fresh water over its head in order that other whales might not take
offense and remain forever out of harpoon range. Agtuk knew the true
significance of that ceremony. The Endorah had to live on the creatures
about them, and they could appreciate those creatures. They were living,
breathing things which differed from the Eskimos only in degree and
shape. They must be treated with respect.

Larensa loved her son, so it must follow that Kalak loved her cubs.
Perhaps she did not love or think of them in the same fashion, but she
would try to keep them from harm.

With the point of his knife Agtuk traced a little design on the ice.
Then he rose to go on.

Somewhere in the depths of the pack he would again find Kalak. She would
try to hide her young, and Agtuk would do his best to ferret out that
hiding place. If Kalak was the mightiest bear, he was the mightiest
hunter. The issue between them must be settled.

Natkus found a seal's breathing hole. With his short lance in his hand,
Agtuk squatted patiently over the hole until the rising seal pushed up
his ivory bobber. Agtuk thrust, felt his lance strike home, and held on
with both hands. When the seal had ceased struggling he chipped ice
until the hole was big enough to draw his dinner out of its aquatic
lair. Agtuk and Natkus feasted, then slept.

They went steadily on, Agtuk aware but heedless of the fact that they
were farther out on the ice than any man and dog of the Endorah had ever
before ventured. When they were tired they slept, and when they were
hungry, Natkus smelled out another seal and Agtuk caught it. He made no
deliberate effort to follow exactly in Kalak's path, but he knew he was
right. Twice during the long trek he found the unmistakable tracks of a
polar bear and three cubs. He had guessed correctly, and his own innate
knowledge of polar bears and their habits was standing him in good
stead. Kalak was taking her cubs exactly where he had thought she would
take them.

Agtuk travelled fast, and on the sixth day after leaving the camp where
he and his comrades had hunted, he came to open sea. The Eskimo stared
wonderingly across it. This was unfamiliar water, a part of the ocean he
had never before visited. Neither, he felt with a little touch of pride,
had any other man of the Endorah. Agtuk had travelled farther than any
man of his tribe.

And somewhere he knew that Kalak awaited him. That had to be, for the
meeting was fated. But where was she?

He pondered only a moment. Kalak would not have swung south, for that
way lay danger to her cubs. Throughout his life Agtuk had heard rumors
of other hunters who lived along this coast. Certainly Kalak would not
risk meeting them. To the east were the hunters of the Endorah, and to
the west was water far too large for even a bear of Kalak's skill and
daring. Surely she would not venture into it with three cubs at her
heels. She had to travel north.

Agtuk followed the sea lane north. Now, when he stopped to eat or sleep,
he always looked to the hunting heads on his arrows and lance. He was on
the right trail. The decision between himself and Kalak could not be too
long delayed. Soon the whole north would know which was the mightiest
and most courageous hunter. It had to be Kalak or Agtuk. It could not be
both.

Trotting a little way ahead, Natkus stopped and bristled. Agtuk halted,
shading his eyes with his hand as he inspected the little herd of walrus
on the ice ahead. Slowly he walked on, as the cumbersome beasts slid
into the water. They surfaced a little way out, swimming about and
grunting angrily at him. Agtuk ignored them; walrus would attack people
only when they themselves were attacked. He stopped where the herd had
been basking, and looked about.

As the season advanced, the sun came up earlier and stayed later. The
rising sun melted the ice, so that there were little pools and lakes on
top of the pack. Many times had Agtuk and Natkus been forced to go
through or around them.

At this point, the basking place of the walrus herd, the sun had melted
the ice without eliminating the tracks of a big polar bear and those of
a small cub. Agtuk guessed what had happened. Somehow, one of Kalak's
cubs had fallen in with the walrus herd. Going to rescue it, Kalak
herself had been injured. The blood trail she left was still plain on
the ice. Agtuk followed it for a way, and found where Kalak had lain
down with her cubs. There was little blood there, and no sign of a
struggle.

Agtuk nocked an arrow, let it fly at a wheeling gull, and watched the
transfixed bird come fluttering down. The Eskimo fired his seal-oil
lamp, and cooked the gull. He ate, and fed Natkus the remains.

Patience was a hunter's virtue; nobody understood its value as well as a
hunter did. And Agtuk would need patience now. Obviously Kalak was too
badly hurt to hunt for herself, and she had three cubs to feed. She must
have food, and could get what she needed only by finding another bear
and taking what remained of his kills. One of two things had to happen;
either Kalak would be unable to find another bear and get food, or she
would find one.

If the first, then she would die on the ice and her cubs would starve.
If the second, she would swing back to the line of march she had been
following. It was as well to await her right here. Even if he wished to
do so, Agtuk knew that he could not unravel all the wanderings Kalak
might pursue when sick and wounded. Besides, it ill-behooved a hunter to
pit himself against a sick bear. When the fight came about, it must be
fair. Agtuk would not go back to the village and say that he had
overcome a wounded bear.

Much of the snow had melted, but in the sheltered lee of an ice hummock
Agtuk found a drift. With his long knife he hacked blocks out of it,
laid them in a circle on a firm area of ice, and piled more blocks on
top. He closed the top, fashioned a tunnel, and had a windproof snow
house. Agtuk next made a snow sleeping bench, and laid his caribou skins
on it. He arranged his oil lamp so that he could both cook upon it and
heat his house.

He was in no hurry and could afford to wait. By this time the entire
village knew that Agtuk had gone to seek the mist bear. When and if he
returned to the village, it must be with definite knowledge about the
fate of Kalak. If she had died on the ice, Agtuk had to know. If he was
able to overtake and fight her, then he must return with some token that
he had battled the mist bear. Whatever Agtuk reported, he would be
believed because he was a hunter and a chief. None would doubt him.

For two more days Agtuk wandered north. As he travelled, the sea lane he
followed grew progressively narrower. Though he could not see the ice on
the other side, sometimes, when the sun was at its height, he could see
it reflecting from that ice. Somewhere up ahead the lead would become
narrower still, and then there would be only ice.

Finally, near the shore he again found the tracks of Kalak and her three
cubs. The bear had killed a seal very recently, Agtuk discovered, and
had eaten a portion of it. The Eskimo tested his bow string to be
certain that that was in proper working order, and looked to his
lancehead. Then he began to search through the ice hummocks among which
he found himself. It was not an ideal place in which to meet Kalak, but
if he must meet her here he would be ready.

Natkus ran to the edge of the ice and snarled. Agtuk whirled, and gasped
in astonishment.

Instead of the bear he had expected to see emerging from the ocean,
Agtuk saw a ship. Her masts were bare and the sails furled. Black coal
smoke poured from her stacks. If Agtuk had not been too awe-stricken, he
would have run. As it was, he could only stare.

At one time or another he had heard of these oomiaks larger than the
largest whale, but until now he had always considered them the product
of someone's imagination. Now he saw for himself that they were not.
They were real, and Agtuk shook an astonished head. Then he nocked an
arrow, leaned his lance against a convenient hummock, and prepared to
defend himself. He was still a hunter, and a chief.

A smaller oomiak with men in it had detached itself from the back of the
great one. Sputtering noisily, leaving a curling wake behind it, it
snorted toward him. Agtuk drew the arrow to its feather, then lowered
his bow and waited. He would fight as hard as he could if he must, and
if he fell he would fall fighting. But he had no quarrel with the men
who came in this strange craft. If they were enemies, then let them
prove it. They could strike the first blow.

The launch hove to and an Eskimo in the bow called out in a dialect
which Agtuk understood,

"What do you do here?"

"I hunt," Agtuk answered. "I seek Kalak, the mist bear."

The Eskimo spoke some strange gibberish to the three other men in the
boat. Agtuk looked wonderingly at them. They were heavily bearded men
who wore garments strange to his land, garments Agtuk thought very
clumsy. The Eskimo called back,

"What is the mist bear?"

Agtuk asked contemptuously, "And where do you come from, that you do not
know?"

"We are strangers who have sailed many days to get here. We do not know
of this mist bear."

Agtuk thawed; strangers could not be expected to know important things
and he must be courteous.

"She is the greatest of all bears," he said. "Three times has she
escaped me, she and her cubs."

"You say she has cubs?"

"Three of them."

"Do you know whither she goes?"

Agtuk waved an arm northward. "She follows the ice to the north, where
she hopes to escape in the pack. I follow her, for I must battle the
mist bear again, to prove that I am a worthy chief of the Endorah."

"We seek cubs," the Eskimo declared. "Will you ride with us, and show us
where this mist bear goes?"

Agtuk hesitated. Since coming to this great water he had longed for a
kayak. Now, even though he was a little afraid of it, here was an
opportunity to ride in the biggest craft he had ever seen. Agtuk again
looked to his weapons. He was chief of the Endorah, and as chief he
feared nothing.

"Yes," he called. "Natkus and I will ride with you."




  _Chapter XII_

  THE LAST MEETING


For the first time in many days, Kalak felt easy and relaxed. The three
cubs, growing almost noticeably larger and stronger as each day passed,
walked beside or behind her as she travelled, or frisked off on small
expeditions of their own. Kalak let them go.

Anything but expert hunters, not yet nearly large enough or experienced
enough to take care of themselves, the cubs were by no means the tiny
things which she had led out onto the ice. And, as they travelled, they
had discovered some of the facts of their arctic life. Even the seals
might be dangerous.

The male cub had learned that very forcibly only three days ago. Coming
by accident between a seal and the nearest water into which it could
slide, he had galloped happily in for the kill. However, hunting seals
was not as simple as it always appeared to be when his mother hunted.

Confronted by a bear cub less than half its own size and weight, the
seal had shown fight. Rising on its flippers, it had bitten viciously at
the cub. Almost turning a somersault in his efforts to get out of the
way, the astonished little bear had skidded out of danger just in time.
From a safe distance he had watched Kalak come up out of the water, kill
the seal with one blow of her paw, and had then helped eat it.

Through such experiences, the cubs were learning, little by little, the
things they must know to survive. Kalak was feeling more and more
relaxed partly because her most troublesome cub seemed at last to be
substituting common sense for enthusiasm, and partly because the
greatest dangers she knew were rapidly being left far behind.

She herself had met and almost exterminated the preying wolf pack; there
were none out here at all. She had met and eluded the Eskimo hunters,
and had proven to herself that she knew how to lead her three cubs among
safe ice-ways. Soon they would be deep in the pack. Every day saw them
nearing the region where Kalak had wished to enter.

Stretching hundreds of miles to the south and west where she had first
come upon it, the sea lane she followed was fast becoming so narrow that
she was almost able to see the ice on the other side. Had she possessed
the vision of a human being, rather than the weak eyes of a bear, she
could have seen it. Less than three miles of water lapped between the
ice lanes. And only a few miles north, open water ended at a perpetually
frozen sea.

With the cubs curled against her, Kalak lay down to sleep. Almost within
the haven she wanted to reach, she dozed peacefully. She stirred when
the male cub finally got up and went forth to snuffle at something that
had interested him, but it was not that which had awakened her. The cub
was safe in this place. It was something else.

Deep within the ice-locked area where she cuddled her babies, some
master tuning-fork had struck a note. It throbbed across the ice,
humming from ridge to hummock and across crevices. It rolled along
smooth ice, flowed over open leads, and vibrated through the broken ice
fields. Because Kalak was a wild creature, always in perfect harmony
with whatever happened in her world of ice, she felt it too. A storm
was coming.

She rose, and glanced about uneasily. The various ice formations hadn't
changed; the sky remained as it had been, the soft wind retained a
constant note. To all outward appearances, everything was as it had
been.

Still the note had come, the thrill had been felt, and because of that
Kalak was restless.

Roused from deep slumber, the female cubs wriggled protestingly. They
got up, stretched, and showed their pink tongues as they yawned. They
sensed nothing unusual. Neither did the male cub, who wandered back
padding confidently across the ice, black eyes gleaming as he brushed
the ice with his nose in an effort to discover something else that might
be interesting.

Kalak remained alert, looking about as though for a visible enemy which
might appear at any moment. Suddenly she started across the ice.

The cubs followed, trailing at her heels and looking about as though now
they, too, had an inkling of something impending. They were only sensing
and reflecting their mother's attitude, but that was enough; the cubs
were learning the hair-trigger reactions of wild things. Even the male
made no move to stray.

Kalak led her cubs down to the sea. There she raised her head, snuffling
the wind and looking all around. There was nothing to be smelled and
nothing unusual to be seen.

Just ahead, the ice-invading sea arm she had been following bent its
elbow in a westerly direction.

A covey of frightened clouds scudded across the sky. Again the tremor
came, not audible and not felt, but surely sensed. Kalak led her cubs at
a fast lope up comparatively level ice on the edge of the sea.

Around the elbow, the water narrowed abruptly. Kalak looked across at
the low ice hills on the other side. She plunged into the water, made
certain that her cubs were beside her, and started to swim.

    *    *    *    *    *

To Agtuk the ship _Narwhal_ was a world so new and amazing that it might
have been conceived in one of Chuesandrin's wildest dreams. Indeed, so
bizarre were some of the things about him, that not even Chuesandrin
could have dreamed them up.

There were no oars or paddles, but the _Narwhal_ still moved. Though he
had never before believed in devils, Agtuk was tempted to do so now.
Somehow the men on this great oomiak must have harnessed a devil to push
their boat so fast and so efficiently.

Agtuk asked no questions because he knew that to do so would only betray
his own ignorance. However, he could look. He walked to the stern of the
ship and peered over at the churning wake left by the propeller. Agtuk
revised some of his opinions. Obviously the whirling blades kept the
ship moving. In turn, the propeller must be moved by some device deep in
the bowels of the ship.

The Eskimo who had questioned Agtuk came to stand beside him.

"Is it not strange?" he asked.

"It is strange to me," Agtuk admitted honestly. "What makes it go?"

"I do not know myself," the Eskimo confessed, "except that there is a
metal monster inside which eats coal, and gets very hot."

"Why do these men bring their oomiak here?" Agtuk inquired.

"Every year some of them come to my village. They catch whales, they
kill seals, they hunt walrus. It is the purpose of this one to take live
cubs of the polar bear."

Agtuk knitted a puzzled brow. "They must come from a very poor land," he
observed. "Even though they know how to build a thing like this. And so
large an oomiak for the purpose of catching bear cubs is surely a waste
of time. Polar bear is not the best of eating, and there would not be
enough meat on even a great many cubs to feed these men for very long. I
do not understand it."

A herd of seals appeared on the ice. As the _Narwhal_ curved in toward
them, men appeared on the deck, and Agtuk watched them curiously.
Apparently they wished to take seals, but had nothing with them except
some odd-shaped sticks. Agtuk smiled. The bearded men on the ship surely
knew how to handle her, but just as surely they knew little about arctic
lore. That they should hope to kill seals by pointing sticks at them--

The rifles roared and, while Natkus cringed at his side, Agtuk covered
his ears to muffle the great noise. He looked wonderingly at the seal
herd. Most were sliding across the ice and diving into the water, but
some remained where they were. Astonished, Agtuk looked at the
blood-stained ice upon which they lay. He could not conceal his
bewilderment. But he said nothing. A chief of the Endorah was not a
child, to ask questions about things he did not understand.

"The weapons are called rifles," the Eskimo who had come with the ship
announced. "They throw little pieces of metal great distances, and very
hard." He added casually, "When this voyage is over I am to have one.
Thus do the white men give gifts to my tribe."

Agtuk made no comment. Obviously the white men who owned the ship had
some wonderful things, but could a man call himself a hunter if he was
unable to get his own game with a knife, lance, or a bow and arrows?
Agtuk wondered. The men of the Endorah were lazy enough as it was when
game was plentiful and easy to get. If they had only to point one of
these things . . . Agtuk shook his head. If the Endorah ever got such
weapons, they would hunt only a little of the time and then sit in their
igloos. They would no longer be a tribe of hunters; the women might just
as well take over.

"Perhaps," the Eskimo suggested, "you may have such a weapon yourself if
you lead us to polar bear cubs."

"I already have fine weapons," Agtuk murmured. "Here are a lance, a
knife, and a bow and arrow. I know what is in them, and what they will
do, because I made them with my own hands from materials which I myself
selected."

The other looked curiously at him, but said nothing more. Together they
leaned upon the rail, looking over the side as the launch bore men to
the edge of the ice. The men leaped out, scrambled onto the ice, and
carried the dead seals to the launch.

Idly Agtuk fingered his knife. Truly the men on the ship had miraculous
weapons, but it would be no honor to meet Kalak with such a thing. He
turned a dubious gaze on the other Eskimo.

"With my own eyes have I seen much which I would not have believed real
if I had not seen it," he stated. "Yet, I would feel much more at ease
were I in a kayak."

"Why?"

"There is going to be a great storm."

"The ship is seaworthy."

"That may be, but I am not handling it."

"Can you handle a kayak in a storm?"

"During a storm on the Bay of Seals," Agtuk said quietly, "I capsized
many times before I finally reached shore, but I did reach it. It was
nothing which most of the men of the Endorah could not repeat. It would
be best if you warn the man who handles this ship that there will be a
great storm."

"He knows. He has things which tell him. The ship is safe."

The Eskimo left him to go forward, and the ship went on up the lead,
mile after mile.

Natkus crouched by his master, watching suspiciously the men who passed
them on the deck. The big dog did not like these cramped quarters, and
often gazed toward the ice. Agtuk stooped to scratch his ears.
Breath-taking though they might be, ships such as this were not for
himself and his dog.

Suddenly Natkus pricked up his ears, whimpered, and trotted forward
along the narrow deck. The big dog's tail was stiff. He bristled, and a
low growl bubbled from his throat.

Agtuk followed him softly. There was something up ahead of the ship and
Natkus had smelled it. A little thrill of anticipation fluttered through
Agtuk. He had come to find and to fight Kalak, the mist bear. She could
not be very far away unless, of course, she had travelled so far and so
fast that she was already deep in the ice fields that must begin where
this water ended. If that were so, then Agtuk would have to take leave
of the ship and penetrate the ice to search for her.

The ship rounded an elbow bend where the lead narrowed. Directly beneath
him, almost under the bows, Agtuk saw Kalak and her swimming cubs.

The ship was almost upon her before Kalak knew of its presence. The wind
had been blowing from her to the _Narwhal_, and she did not see it until
it rounded the elbow bend. It was too late to return to the safety of
the ice they had just left. By now they were more than halfway across
the lead. It was better to go on than to turn back.

Kalak swam so strongly that she left the weaker cubs two lengths behind
her. She swerved away from the steep ice ridge toward which she had been
swimming and cut toward a gentle slope where the cubs could crawl out
easily. Then she circled and came up behind the cubs.

The mother bear bunted them with her nose, and whined anxiously as she
kept her ears attuned to the sounds behind her. This was the danger she
feared most, the one against which she knew no defense.

A sudden wind snarled across the water, kicking up choppy waves. The ice
she had just left began to grind and crack as it started to break up.
The storm was coming up fast, making progress more difficult for the
desperately swimming cubs.

Kalak heard the sputtering launch cut away and approach. Deliberately
she dropped farther behind the cubs. Even though she did not know how to
fight such a thing, she would try. The cubs drew away, nearer the ice
every second.

Kalak turned to swim straight at the launch, snarling in fury. Of the
six men who rode in it, the bear recognized only Agtuk. She raised
herself as high as she could in the water, once more ready to come to
grips with her old enemy. With her eye Kalak judged the distance from
the waterline to the launch's deck, and calculated just how far she
would have to spring in order to reach it. Just as she was ready to
leap, the launch swerved to one side. A rope snaked out, the loop
settled about her neck, and the launch sputtered on.

The bear tried to bend her head so she could bite the choking thing
about her throat, and flailed wildly with her front paws. Even though
she had to pull the rope tighter to do so, she turned far enough to see
the cubs scramble up the slope and disappear among the ice hummocks.
They had escaped; now she could give all of her time to fighting.

She tried to swim toward the launch, and it again swerved out of her
way. Choking snarls rattled through her constricted throat as she clawed
at the tightening rope. A great wave, blown by the fast-heightening
wind, rolled over her head. When she surfaced again, she discovered
that, somehow, another rope had settled around her front paw. The launch
moved toward the ship, towing her relentlessly along through the
succession of waves that rolled in.

Kalak was dragged under again, and when the slackening ropes finally
permitted her to rise she could only sputter through the water in her
mouth and lungs. They were beside the ship, she discovered, and the
ropes which held her had been thrown up to the _Narwhal's_ deck. Kalak
turned to reckon with this new enemy.

She scraped ineffectively at the _Narwhal's_ hull, trying to climb it.
She could not, and when the ship leaned heavily toward her in the swell,
she was again cast beneath the surface.

The ice fields on the other side of the lead were breaking up. Driven by
the wind, tossed by high seas, huge chunks of them were pitching about.
A man on deck shouted down to those in the launch.

"Rope her hind legs and belly and we'll winch her up!"

"Make it fast!" a man in the launch yelled back. "This storm's building
up to heavy weather!"

Still trying to climb the ship's side so she could get at the men on
deck, Kalak was almost unaware when the launch crawled up behind her. A
heavy rope encircled her hind legs, and was worked about her belly.
Another rope tightened about her legs, and the slack was thrown up to
the deck.

The winch began to creak. Raging and snarling, but unable to free
herself, Kalak was lifted helplessly into the air. She was suspended
over the front of a steel cage while the ropes trailing from her neck
and paws were drawn through the open door and out the cage's back end. A
dozen men grabbed the ropes.

Kalak was lowered to the deck. As soon as her paws touched solid
planking she tried to lunge at the nearest group of men. She could not
reach them. Slowly, steadily, she was pulled into the cage and held
there. The steel door clanged shut. The bolt dropped into place.

    *    *    *    *    *

Agtuk flamed with anger. With only Natkus for a companion and his own
ice-sense as guide, he had travelled many days' journey from the Bay of
Seals. He had found Kalak, the mist bear, only to be cheated out of his
fight with her by the men on board the ship.

It had been no part of the bargain that they were to have Kalak, that
they were to pursue her in their noisy oomiak, truss her up
ignominiously, and imprison her in a steel cage. Agtuk watched her as
she bit at the ropes that still trailed from her paws and body. With one
snap of her jaws she sheared them cleanly in two, then used her long
claws to work off the loops. Agtuk's rage increased. Kalak was his
enemy, and his alone. Certainly he had not travelled so far to be
cheated of his battle. He could not go back to the Bay of Seals and tell
the villagers that other men had captured Kalak after he found her.
Agtuk grasped a line to steady himself on the pitching ship, and used
his other hand to stop the Eskimo who had first hailed him.

"Let me go!" the other cried. "The ship is in danger!"

"It is not my ship," Agtuk said, "and who are you to go when a chief
would speak with you? Why have they imprisoned Kalak?"

"I do not know! Let me go!"

"Kalak is my game," Agtuk continued. "I do not wish to fight anyone
unless I must, but I have my bow, my lance, and my knife. Unless Kalak
is freed, and put back on the ice, I am going to attack the ship."

"You are mad!" the other cried. "Can you not see what the storm is doing
to the ship?"

"I can see, but the ship is not my worry. Unless it will weather storms,
whoever brought it here should not have done so. Go now, and deliver my
message."

Agtuk released him. Stumbling, steadying himself against the rail, the
other disappeared in the spray that was dashing over the deck.

The ship had fought its way around the elbow bend to the wider part of
the lead but, in spite of all it could do, the screaming wind still
drove it steadily toward the ice. Agtuk's gaze roved along the line of
ice, and he selected the probable point at which the _Narwhal_ would
strike. He stooped to gather his weapons.

Agtuk knew this sea, for he had lived his whole life upon it, and he was
not afraid. There was no storm which he could not weather once he was
upon the ice. And he would be there soon.

A split second before the _Narwhal_ crashed against the ice barrier,
Agtuk stooped to pull the pin that locked Kalak's cage. Then he and
Natkus leaped over the side.

As the ship struck, a great crashing rose above the wild wind and the
grinding ice. The _Narwhal_ bounced away and smashed again, but Agtuk
and Natkus scrambled farther up the ice as soon as they landed. Agtuk
turned to see Kalak come over the side and drop within ten feet of them.
The battered ship lurched out toward open water.

Agtuk paid no further attention to it, for now there was only one thing
to occupy him. Natkus left his side and, like the expert bear hunter he
was, dived at Kalak's flank. His lance poised, Agtuk went in.

Half a ton of cat-quick fury, Kalak charged. She had learned something
about lances and, quick as Agtuk was, she was quicker. She sideslid when
he thrust. Agtuk saw his lance clatter to the ground and thought of his
bow, but there was no time now to nock an arrow. He drew his knife.

Kalak's charge bore him to the ice as easily as if he had been a baby.
But, even as he went down, Agtuk thrust and slashed, rolling on his
side. Dazed, he struggled to his feet. He and Natkus were alone.

The mist bear was gone, melted into the gloom which had gathered thickly
on the heels of the storm. Agtuk looked at the fistful of white hair he
clutched in his hand, and back into the mist. He smiled. He had had his
battle. It had not been much of a fight, for the bear had merely knocked
him out of the way in her hurry to find her cubs. Still, he had fought
Kalak with a knife, and the fur was his token to prove that. From this
time on Agtuk's rule of the village would be secure. He knew in his own
mind that he was fit to be Chief. He also knew that Chuesandrin could
never make a charm to overcome the might of a man who dared fight Kalak
at close range.

Agtuk began his long journey home.

    *    *    *    *    *

A mile and a half from the place where they had climbed upon the ice,
Kalak found her disconsolate cubs. They rushed gladly to her, whimpering
with joy, and Kalak nosed each one gently. Then she turned north. The
inaccessible ice fields were only a little distance away; they should
reach them tonight. She had taken her babies to safety and this time she
would keep them safe until they were grown and able to fend for
themselves.

Kalak headed into the thickening mist.




  THE AUTHOR


_Although Jim Kjelgaard likes to have his name pronounced in the Danish
way_, Kyell-gard, _his boyhood was as American as Tom Sawyer's. A great
grandson of the man who brought the family name from Denmark, he was
born in New York City in 1910, but grew up on a mountain farm in the
famous Black Forest region of Pennsylvania. Here, surrounded by
forest-covered mountains cut by game trails and trout streams, he and
his four brothers lived a rugged, outdoor life, and grew up wise in the
ways of the woods. The year he graduated from high school, Jim and
another boy spent a season on their own in the wilderness, hunting and
trapping._

_Jim's greatest interests have always been the out-of-doors, animals,
and American history, and he has written about all three._ Forest Patrol
_describes the adventures of a young forest ranger_. Rebel Siege _is a
tale of frontier life during the Revolution_. Big Red _is a story of a
boy and a champion Irish setter in the wilderness_. Buckskin Brigade
_tells of the frontiersmen who led the way across the continent_. Snow
Dog _describes the life of a dog on his own in the wilderness_.

_Jim Kjelgaard now makes his home in Milwaukee, from which he and his
equally outdoor wife make as many expeditions to the wilds as possible.
Small daughter Karen can't quite keep up with her parents yet, but she's
learning fast._


  =Transcriber's Notes:=
  hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in the original
  Page 46, When food was scare ==> When food was scarce
  Page 107, much reach the Bay ==> must reach the Bay




[End of Kalak of the Ice, by Jim Kjelgaard]
