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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78351 ***
+
+
+
+
+        [Illustration: Along came a huge brown bear. --Page 32]
+
+
+
+
+                                 SITKA
+                             THE SNOW BABY
+
+                           By Allen Chaffee
+
+                 Author of “Unexplored”, “Lost River”
+              The “Twinkly Eyes Books” “Fuzzy Wuzz” Etc.
+
+                            Illustrated by
+                              PETER DA RU
+
+                        MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY
+
+                      Springfield, Massachusetts
+
+
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1923
+                       By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY
+                      Springfield, Massachusetts
+
+                          All Rights Reserved
+
+
+                         Bradley Quality Books
+
+                  Printed in United States of America
+
+
+
+
+                                 _To_
+
+                              PETER DARU
+
+             _who knows and loves the Alaskan wilderness_
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Here, in story form, is the natural history of Alaska, our last great
+American wilderness.
+
+In the adventures of the wee white polar bear, who drifts down the
+coast on a floating berg, the young reader has a chance to see Southern
+Alaska, with its two months of lush summer verdure, as well as the long
+frozen winter under the Northern lights, and the later summers far out
+in Bering Strait.
+
+With the enterprising bear cub, he can watch Eskimos and reindeer,
+seals and walruses, migratory sea birds and the salmon who swim the
+inland waterways to spawn. He will witness the birth of an ice-berg and
+adventure amid the storms and glaciers of the polar night.
+
+There is also the story of a seal baby, who became the pet of the
+fisherman’s little boy.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  SITKA, THE SNOW BABY
+
+  Chapter                              Page
+
+     I. THE LITTLE WHITE BEAR             1
+
+    II. UNGA, THE ESKIMO BOY              8
+
+   III. ADRIFT ON AN ICE-BERG            15
+
+    IV. THE WALRUS HERD                  22
+
+     V. SUMMER IN ALASKA                 29
+
+    VI. BLUEBERRIES AND MOSQUITOES       34
+
+   VII. AN ADVENTURE                     41
+
+  VIII. WOLVES AND SALMON                47
+
+    IX. THE BIRTH OF AN ICE-BERG         56
+
+     X. MONSTERS OF THE SEA              62
+
+    XI. TOOTH AND FANG                   68
+
+   XII. “LET THERE BE PEACE”             81
+
+
+  FINNY-FOOT, THE SEAL
+
+    I. THE WATER PUPPY                   88
+
+   II. PIETRO’S PET                      95
+
+  III. THE TRAINED SEALS                101
+
+   IV. FLAPPER THE FUR SEAL             108
+
+  GLOSSARY OF ALASKAN WORDS             116
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LITTLE WHITE BEAR
+
+
+Sitka, the Snow Baby, opened his eyes on a world all blue-white
+ice-bergs and green-blue ocean under a sky that sparkled in the spring
+sunshine.
+
+He was as fat as butter and as fuzzy as a kitten, was Sitka, the little
+white bear. He looked for all the world like a big puppy, with his long
+white fur that was to keep him warm in this land of ice and snow. For
+his home was Alaska, that great Western frontier of the United States
+that reaches to the North Pole.
+
+Why was Sitka white, instead of black like his cousin Twinkly Eyes, of
+the deep, black-shadowed pine woods? One reason for his having white
+fur in that land of white was so that his enemies could not see him
+so plainly. For there were fierce white wolves that would have eaten
+him, had they found him, he was so little and soft and helpless. Of
+course his mother could protect him,--if there weren’t too many wolves,
+she was so big and fierce. Mother White Bear, like all the polar bear
+tribe, was at least twice as big as Mother Black Bear.
+
+Sitka had been born five weeks before in the cave in the ice-berg where
+his mother had slept the winter away. At first he had been naked and
+blind and helpless. Now his fur had grown and his eyes had opened, and
+he was ready to take a look at the world.
+
+My, how cold it was, even in spring, here in Alaska! His mother kept
+walking back and forth, back and forth, on the ice, because the minute
+she stopped her feet would have frozen fast, even though their soles
+were covered with fur. Sitka watched her for a few minutes, then he,
+too, began pacing back and forth, back and forth, without stopping.
+
+His mother had a longer neck than most bears, because it helped her to
+keep her nose above water when she swam. She was a great swimmer, for
+she lived on fish most of the time, and in her search for salmon and
+mackerel and shell-fish she often went far from shore, swimming from
+one ice-floe to the next through the open sea. The polar bear is often
+called the sea bear.
+
+Now this is what had become of Sitka’s father.--When the long, dark
+polar winter had set in and Sitka’s mother had curled herself up in
+the ice cave to hibernate, her mate had gone roaming over land and sea
+in search of good things to eat. He never slept the winter away as she
+did, and the cold gave him a ravenous appetite. Something must have
+happened to him during his wanderings, for he never came back. Perhaps
+an Eskimo killed him, to make his warm white fur into a rug for his
+igloo, as they call the little round snow houses these little brown
+people live in. Or perhaps he wanted a bear skin to make himself a
+parka, the hooded shirt they wear.
+
+Sitka’s mother had selected for her winter sleep a den on the ice-berg.
+This was when the sea froze over. When the spring sunshine began
+shining through the glassy walls of her retreat, and Sitka was strong
+enough to follow her, she burst her way through the icy door of
+her cave and led him forth, while she looked this way and that for
+something she could eat. The berg had broken away from the harbor ice,
+and floated this way and that through the open sea, as the wind blew it
+along. There wasn’t a thing she could eat on that ice cake, and she was
+starved after her winter’s fast.
+
+Most of the year she had to live on fish and clams, and the eggs of sea
+birds, because only in mid-summer were there berries and grasses. She
+loved salmon perhaps best of all. Once she found a good fishing ground,
+she could catch the great silver fish with her claws. But not one fish
+could she see in the water that broke in little waves against their
+floating island.
+
+Small sea-gulls were flying low above their heads. They were Arctic
+tern, and it made her mouth water to look at them. Leaping after one
+that flew low overhead, she made a grab at it with her paw, but failed
+to catch it. Wee Sitka also made a grab at them, but his fat legs
+slipped from under him, and over and over he rolled like a furry ball.
+The birds had been wintering in the South, and they had flown thousands
+of miles on their long wings to get back to Alaska. By and by, when
+the short Arctic summer came, it would be the most wonderful place in
+the world to raise their families and find the things they liked to
+eat. They had webbed feet, so that they could swim when their wings got
+tired, and their long bills were hooked at the tips to help them catch
+their slippery prey.
+
+Just now the circling birds wheeled at the call of their leader and
+went flapping Eastward toward the Alaskan shore. “That means they’ve
+seen something good,--perhaps a school of mackerel,” Sitka’s mother
+rumbled deep down in her throat. No wonder the Eskimos watch the tern
+for a sign of good luck, for the bright eyes of a flock of gulls are
+sure to see where the best fishing ground lies.
+
+Mother White Bear plunged into the icy water, bidding the snow baby
+follow her. Sitka dipped one fat paw into the icy tide, and squealed
+that he was afraid. “Come on,” she urged him. “Just catch hold of my
+tail and I’ll tow you along.” (For you know the polar bear has a wee
+stub of a tail.)
+
+“No-o-o-o!” he squealed, afraid. But wise Mother White Bear sank almost
+out of sight in the blue-green water. “Wa-i-t!” he wailed.
+
+Of a sudden she lifted her head high on its long neck, and sniffed the
+current of the wind. Sitka also sniffed, to find out what it was she
+smelled. Just then his feet slipped from under him, and off into the
+icy water slid the fat white cub. “Oosh! Huff--huff--huff!” he gasped,
+the plunge fairly taking his breath away. He felt sure that he was
+going under. Without once realizing that he was learning to swim, he
+struck out with all fours, just as if he were running, till he could
+make a grab for his mother’s tail. Then he clung to it with his teeth,
+while she swam strongly to the next great, floating ice cake. There she
+scrambled over the edge, and Sitka with her, and stood shaking her wet
+fur and sniffing the wind.
+
+“I smell birds’ nests,” she explained. “But I get a message about
+something else, too. It must be an enemy;” for the fur was rising along
+the back of her neck, the way it does when danger threatens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE ESKIMO BOY
+
+
+The little white bear wondered why his mother wriggled her nose, with
+the fur rising so angrily on the back of her neck.
+
+It was only a boy,--Unga, an Eskimo lad, who, unlike Sitka, walked on
+his hind legs all the time. But Mother White Bear had been hunted so
+many times by these small brown people that her first instinct was to
+dive beneath the icy water and swim to safety. But with the wee, fat
+cub it would be hard to dive without drowning him. Of course, had she
+been alone, she could have handled the little Eskimo with one blow
+of her huge fore arm. But she knew he could throw a spear that might
+hurt Sitka. Then he would take the cub’s soft fur to make a fur coat.
+That had happened, once, to a polar cub. The thought made her growl
+ferociously, deep down in her throat.
+
+A moment more and the fur-clad little fellow came in sight. Fortunately
+for Sitka, he was alone. He had not brought one of the great, wolfish
+“husky” dogs that bears are so afraid of. His father was driving the
+dog-team to his sled that day.
+
+Sitka’s mother turned. The odor of the birds’ nests was very near now.
+Following that wonderful nose of hers straight across the ice, she swam
+another bit of open water, hoping to leave the boy behind her. Again
+she crossed an ice-floe, Sitka close behind, and again she swam an open
+lane of water. That way, they came to a rocky islet that was covered
+thick with eider ducks. The great, handsome birds had plucked the soft
+feathers,--the eider down--from their own breasts to line their rocky
+nests, and in these nests were hundreds and thousands of pale eggs. The
+whole rocky islet was covered with these nests.
+
+“Um!” sniffed Mother White Bear hungrily. “I think we have left that
+boy behind, and I am going to have eggs for supper.” With Sitka close
+at her heels, she shuffled along between the nests, taking here an egg
+and there an egg and crunching it in her great jaws. The meal put new
+strength into her; it would enable her to nurse her furry baby when she
+put him to sleep.
+
+The ducks quacked and scolded, but there were so many eggs that there
+would be plenty left to hatch into ducklings.
+
+So busy had Mother White Bear been at her feast that she had almost
+forgotten about the Eskimo boy. Of a sudden she saw him paddling around
+the islet in his seal-skin boat. At the same instant he saw wee, fuzzy
+Sitka galloping along behind his mother, trying his best to keep up
+with her. The boy raised his spear to hurl it at the Snow Baby.
+
+At that moment Sitka’s life was certainly in danger. But great, nine
+foot Mother White Bear, catching a whiff of the wind that blew
+straight to her wonderful nose from the dirty, greasy Eskimo lad,
+turned back just in time. Furiously she batted the spear with her
+powerful forearm as it came whistling through the air. In another
+instant it would have struck her baby. Growling awful threats, she
+rushed at Unga to drive him back.
+
+The little white bear, terrified by the battle that seemed about to be
+fought over his small person, turned tail and ran for all he was worth.
+From a point that jutted from the rocky islet he scrambled aboard a
+blue-white chunk of ice. The next thing he knew, the ice cracked with
+a sound like the roar of a cannon, and the floe he was on split off
+and began floating away. Sitka whimpered in fright as he watched the
+blue-green water rush in between him and the isle.
+
+But his mother saw him and came racing across the rocks, stepping,
+smash! all over the birds’ nests in her hurry. Swimming the strip of
+open water, she scrambled up beside him, and began nuzzling him all
+over to see if he was hurt. The Eskimo boy would trouble them no more.
+They could see him paddling away in his skin canoe.
+
+Sitka was to have an even more exciting time later that spring. Awaking
+in his mother’s warm, furry arms to a morning of golden sunshine and
+blue sky, with gulls flying overhead crying “que-ok, que-ok, que-ok!”
+and the ice-bergs that rose like blue-white mountain peaks to seaward,
+he was startled by a rumbling like thunder. All about them it began
+sounding, for the ice cakes were breaking apart, floating this way and
+that and grinding against one another. But their own berg, so snug
+and safe with its cave in which they always slept, towered among the
+up-ending ice cakes as secure as a miniature mountain peak.
+
+Away off in the open water they could see little spouts of water.
+Sitka’s mother said it was whales “blowing.”
+
+“What are whales?” the cub demanded, round eyed with wonder.
+
+“Whales,” said his mother, “are great fish-like creatures, ever and
+ever and ever so much bigger than the biggest polar bear that ever
+lived. But the queer thing is that they are not fish, really, though
+they spend their lives in the ocean, because they have fur instead of
+scales, and the mother whale nurses her baby just as a cat does her
+kitten.”
+
+“Oo! Aren’t you afraid of whales?” Sitka marvelled.
+
+“No. They have the tiniest mouths. But whale meat is delicious. These
+little brown men hunt them for their blubber, as they call the fat that
+lines their sides, and I’d love nothing better than to find a strip
+of blubber. Let’s go a little nearer.--Um! I smell blubber now. I do
+believe those Eskimos have been whale-hunting. If we could just find
+where they’ve been cutting blubber, what a feast it would be!”
+
+The Snow Baby was happy to go exploring. Climbing a steep, icy slope
+to the ridge of the next ice pan, they could see, away across the ice,
+which had frozen in ridges like the waves of the sea, a huge dark body
+that Mother White Bear’s nose said was a whale. But further out, a
+horde of the fur-clad little brown men were racing toward another
+whale in their seal-skin boats, with spears raised. Mother White Bear
+hesitated. She hated to take Sitka too near these Eskimos. But the
+odor of whale meat came tantalizingly to her nostrils, and she was
+dreadfully hungry. Cautiously she padded forward, and Sitka after her,
+ready at a moment’s notice to run for their lives. But they reached the
+meat in safety.
+
+She had just begun to eat ravenously when a sudden shout went up. One
+of the little brown men had seen her, and turned in pursuit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ADRIFT ON AN ICE-BERG
+
+
+No sooner had Mother White Bear seen the Eskimo turn to pursue her
+than she started running back over the ice floe, urging the fat cub to
+follow.
+
+Sitka raced as best he could, but his fat forelegs were so much shorter
+than his hind legs that he stepped on his own feet and fell, and rolled
+this way and that. Again and again he fell, till Mother White Bear came
+back and tried to carry him by the scruff of the neck. But he was too
+heavy for that now. And all the time the little brown man was coming
+closer. At last the Eskimo raised his spear to hurl it at Sitka.
+
+Mother White Bear had just come to the top of a steep, slippery place
+on the ice-floe where it sloped to the sea.[1] In desperation, the
+great, furry mother took wee Sitka in her almost human forearms, and
+sitting down at the top of the slide, coasted straight down the ice-pan
+into the white-capped waves. By the time the Eskimo had climbed to the
+top of the slide, where he could see what had become of them, they were
+swimming rapidly away, the cub holding fast to his mother’s tail.
+
+[1] Note--A polar bear seen on the broken ice off Wrangel Island was
+seen to climb to the top of an uptilted ice-pan, lay down on his side,
+and pushing himself off with one hind foot, coast down head foremost
+to the water thirty of forty feet below, states E. W. Nelson in a
+publication of the National Geographic Society.
+
+Another time he saw a mother bear shelter her cub from flying bullets
+by taking him between her fore legs and swimming away with him.
+
+Even then the little brown man could have thrown his spear and struck
+them, but Mother White Bear, suspicioning as much, made a dive under a
+floating cake of ice. They came up on the other side, where he could
+not see them, their noses just barely out of water,--and there they
+waited till long after the little brown man had given up and gone back
+to the whale hunt.
+
+There followed delightful days on Egg Island, as they called the rocks
+on which they had found the eider ducks. It rained a good deal, but
+they did not mind. The days were getting longer now. There were only
+a few hours of darkness between sunset and sunrise. The ice of inland
+rivers was thawed through in spots, where the Eskimos had chopped holes
+to catch salmon. Mother White Bear would sit all day at one of these
+salmon holes, watching for the big red fish. When she saw one, biff!
+would go her fore arm, claws out like five ivory fish hooks, to nab the
+slippery fellow. Then how she did feast! Sitka watched every move she
+made, because by and by he, too, wanted to be a mighty fisherman.
+
+One day she took him to visit Seal Rocks. From far away they could hear
+the dog-like barking of the queer creatures, as they lay basking in the
+noonday sun. Now and again one would come swimming along with a fish in
+his jaws, clambering up on the rocks with his flippers.
+
+Long ago, when the world was young, Mother White Bear told Sitka, the
+seals all lived on land, and had legs, but they found it so much easier
+to get their food from the sea that they became expert swimmers. That
+meant that Mother Nature had to flatten their fore-legs into flippers,
+with webbed fingers, so that they could use them as paddles, as a fish
+does his fins. Their hind legs she turned into flappers that they could
+hold snug together and use, like a fish’s tail, to steer with. This
+makes it hard for them to get about on land, and Sitka thought it was
+the funniest sight in the world to see them humping themselves along
+over the rocks. But they were wonderful at swimming and diving and
+catching fish.
+
+Mother White Bear would not swim too near Seal Rocks today, however,
+because the great bull seals, the fathers and grandfathers, were there
+to protect the little ones. And my, how those old bulls did bark at
+them! For they feared that Mother White Bear might like the flavor of
+baby seal. Nearly every cow-seal had a baby with soft, woolly white
+fur, though when it grew up it would be brown and tan. Mother White
+Bear would have liked to take Sitka a little nearer, but though the cow
+seals were not much bigger than big dogs, the bulls were almost as huge
+as herself. That, she told the inquiring cub, was because every bull
+had to protect at least a dozen cows and their babies. The young bulls
+are killed for their skins, and that makes the numbers uneven.
+
+The seals had all been South for the winter. In May the bull seals had
+returned to the islands, swimming through the icy water so fast that
+the cows could not keep up with them. For several weeks the bulls had
+held contests, and fought among themselves to see who was strongest,
+and who should have the best home sites on the islands. In June their
+mates had come, and almost the same day, the seal pups had been born.
+It is still cold in Alaska in early summer, but the seals have such
+thick fur--these Alaska seals--that they do not mind. Of course the
+best deep sea fishing cannot be found so near shore, and the mother
+seals often had to swim for miles to find food. Then they would come
+back and nurse their babies. By fall the little ones would be able to
+fish for themselves, and they would all go South for the winter.
+
+The two bears next swam past some rocks where they saw a herd of huge
+fat walruses. These leather-skinned old fellows, who looked as if they
+might be second cousins to the seals, had great tusks that curved from
+their jaws to the very ground. Sitka was terribly afraid when he saw
+those ivory tusks. But his mother only laughed and bade him watch and
+see what they did with their ferocious-looking weapons. Then she led
+him over the rocks, past the lazy, lubberly creatures, who eyed them
+stupidly, to where one old fellow was busy just off shore. To Sitka’s
+immense surprise, the monster was digging clams with his tusks. He had
+quite a pile of them waiting for his supper.
+
+Sitka watched with twinkling eyes till the old fellow’s back was
+turned. Then he made a dash to see what those clams were like. My, how
+that walrus roared at him! He made for him with his tusks, but Sitka
+dodged to one side too quickly for his clumsy lunge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE WALRUS HERD
+
+
+On a bare, flat island of the ice pack sprawled a herd of walruses.
+Sitka stared!
+
+They were the fattest, ugliest, fiercest looking monsters the little
+white bear had ever seen. They were not as fierce as they looked,
+however, as Mother White Bear knew, for they lived on clams and
+shell-fish. Their fierce appearance came partly from the long ivory
+tusks with which they dug their clams.
+
+They were enormous creatures, some of the old bulls weighing fully
+two thousand pounds. Like seals, their legs consisted of flappers.
+But there the resemblance ended. Instead of silky fur, they had ugly,
+hairless, warty-looking hides, tough and wrinkled and of a muddy brown.
+
+Neither have they the brains of the seal tribe: for they had found the
+life of the clam digger so easy that they had no need of brains, and
+Nature takes back what we do not use. Their thick necks ended in heads
+so shallow that there seemed to be nothing there but a pair of tiny
+eyes and the whiskers at the roots of their tusks.
+
+On land these ungainly monsters were almost helpless in their
+fatness,--instead of being agile like seals. But in the sea they were
+marvelous swimmers, their layers of fat blubber helping there to float
+them.
+
+However, like all mammals, they will fight fiercely when their babies
+are in danger.
+
+As Sitka and his mother approached the ice where lay a herd of mother
+walruses and their young, the mothers eyed them angrily, and the moment
+they scrambled aboard the floe, several of them charged with the utmost
+ferocity, bellowing and rearing themselves high on their hind quarters
+as if to fling themselves on the intruders and crush them flat, as,
+indeed, they might have done, had not Mother White Bear given Sitka the
+signal to dive off into the water again. Dearly would she have loved
+to treat him to walrus calf, but it was plain they would have to try
+strategy in capturing such prey.
+
+For a time they swam around, not too close to the mother walruses. The
+fathers were digging clams, heaping great piles of them on shore, then
+settling to their feast, or sometimes eating as they dug. Sitka eyed
+these clam piles with envy and a little mischief. “Mother, I’m going to
+try it again!” he announced. And before she could utter a warning, he
+had made a dash for the breakfast a huge old bull was looking forward
+to, as he dug away in the shallow water.
+
+With a bellow of wrath the old fellow reared his monstrous head and
+eyed the white cub with a gleam of anger. “Come back!” whoofed Mother
+White Bear. But Sitka did not hear. The next moment the ivory tusks
+would have come down straight into the middle of Sitka’s back, but that
+he dodged, and slid into the water with no more than a red gash on his
+white side.
+
+“Just wait till I’m a little bigger!” he roared at the walrus. “You
+just wait!”
+
+It was therefore with huge interest that he watched his mother, towards
+dusk that afternoon, prepare to creep up on a walrus calf. Bidding
+Sitka remain in hiding behind a chunk of ice, she flattened herself
+like a cat creeping up on a bird, and waited till it should be wholly
+dark. She had fixed on a calf who, with his mother, lay a little to
+one side of the main body of the herd, and in order to take them by
+surprise, she and Sitka had made their approach by swimming first out
+to sea, then doubling back and approaching with nothing showing above
+water-line save the black tips of their noses.
+
+In that interval just between sundown and the first stars, when it
+was darkest, she began creeping slowly forward. Once her foot scraped
+the ice, and the walrus cow looked up suspiciously, and Mother White
+Bear held as still as a rock till the cow had gone to sleep again.
+Then forward she crept, nearer, nearer, nearer, nearer! Sitka could no
+longer see her white bulk for the darkness, nor could he hear aught but
+the wind and the waves.
+
+With a sudden dash she had broken the calf’s neck with a blow and was
+dragging his huge weight back over the ice. The walrus cow was roused
+now and rearing this way and that, trying to overtake them. But so
+awkward are walruses on land that she could make no headway compared
+with agile Mother White Bear; and though her bellowing awoke the herd
+and they raised the most terrific alarm, they were still farther away
+than she. In the inky darkness they only tumbled over one another in
+their awkwardness, searching in vain for the cause of the disturbance.
+Had Mother White Bear met them in the water, it would have been a
+different story. But she did not take to the water till she had reached
+the place where she had left Sitka. Then, softly, softly, they slipped
+over the edge of the ice and began towing the fat body of the calf to
+shore. It meant feasting for many days.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was only a week later that they watched, themselves safely hidden,
+their black noses just barely out of water, while a band of Eskimos
+went walrus hunting, and Sitka marveled to see what cowards walruses
+could be. As the little brown men approached in their kyacks (fearless
+in these frail skin boats), the whole herd simply rushed terrified into
+the water and swam for their lives. Even then it was simple enough for
+the hunters to make a kill with their bone-pointed spears. Had the
+walruses not been such cowards, it would have been the easiest thing in
+the world for them to have reared their tusked heads out of the water
+and crushed the boats.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SUMMER IN ALASKA
+
+
+The ice-berg on which Sitka and his mother had their den was drifting
+further and further South.
+
+It was but one of many bergs, and a small one, at that. Huge,
+mountainous looking islets of the blue-white ice swam all about them,
+sometimes bumping against one another with a roar. Sea birds screamed
+above their heads, and the sun glinted from the water merrily, on
+days when it did not rain. Sitka felt that they were bound on a great
+adventure.
+
+Sometimes the wee white bear watched the waves that broke in white foam
+against the floating bergs, and nowhere could he see anything but sea
+and sky. Again they floated close to shore, where steep granite cliffs
+jutted in long arms between the fiords,--the narrow inlets the ice had
+cut. In places, the cliffs were red with the cooled lava that had come
+pouring hot from some ancient volcano; and Mother White Bear would tell
+Sitka how, when the world was young, the mountain peaks that lined the
+shore had flamed and smoked and rumbled, and sent forth a fountain of
+fire and ashes. For that was the way new mountains were made. At such
+times Sitka’s eyes would grow round with wonder.
+
+“Will it happen again?” he asked uneasily.
+
+“Sometimes it happens even now,” his mother told him. “But it is
+nothing to be afraid of. We won’t go near.”
+
+“But where does the fire come from?” he would ask.
+
+“From away inside the earth. You know it was once all hot millions of
+years ago, but it has cooled until we have ice and snow.”
+
+Their little berg soon began floating down a shore covered by green
+forest, which crept to the very water’s edge. Birds sang in the tree
+tops, and lovely waterfalls poured over the pink limestone cliffs.
+It was like paradise. Tall ferns and brilliant flowers embroidered
+the brook banks. Mother White Bear sniffed. She could smell ripening
+berries. It would be worth while to swim ashore and have a little
+change from fish. Sitka was the happiest little bear in all Alaska.
+
+That day they feasted on clams and mussels and other shell-fish that
+they found among the rocks. They had juicy meadow grasses, too, and
+lilies with roots like onions. The days were growing longer and longer,
+till there were just a few hours of darkness, and all the rest was day.
+For it was the land of the midnight sun. “In winter Sitka’s mother
+reminded him, it was dark almost all day, where they came from,--so
+near the North Pole.
+
+Sometimes Mother White Bear would lead the way along the beach till
+they came to the river. It began just behind the falls that shot over
+the cliff in rainbow-tinted spray. Along that river was a bear-path
+beaten hard into the soft soil by the feet of hundreds of other bears
+black and brown and gray, who fished every year along the bank. There
+the two explorers would catch salmon and leaping trout, and sometimes
+they found great piles of fish that had been washed ashore by the
+spring floods. These expeditions were a bit of a risk for a polar bear,
+and Sitka’s mother was conscious that their white coats no longer
+blended with the background of white ice that Mother Nature intended
+them to live on. Still, they could always return to their cave on the
+berg to sleep. It floated so slowly that they could ramble all day on
+shore, and still swim back to it when night came. For Mother White Bear
+could swim as fast as a motor boat when she wanted to.
+
+One thing she always avoided, and that was the settlements where
+Indians, and sometimes white men, lived. When they passed a town, she
+would “lay low.” For it was not of other animals she was afraid, so
+long as she was with Sitka to protect him, but of the red men.
+
+She was, however, careful to keep out of the way of the huge brown
+bears that lived along the shore. One day they had smelled ripe
+blueberries, and she had led Sitka cautiously ashore for a taste of
+the fruit. It was boggy where they grew. The heavy rains had left the
+ground soaked with moisture, and they had to keep to the firm ground
+around the edge. Even then, sometimes, the cub would slip on a soft bit
+of moss and sink to his armpits in the oozy swamp or tundra, before his
+mother could yank him out by the scruff of his neck.
+
+Here they felt the first mosquitoes Sitka had ever known. But they
+couldn’t do much damage, through his thick fur, except around his face.
+By and by, along came a huge brown bear, a kadiak bear, larger than
+Mother White Bear. Sitka’s mother promptly hid him in a thick clump of
+alders, but the kadiak never even looked in their direction. He was
+following his nose to the blueberry bog.
+
+Now they had noticed how thick the mosquitoes were, out over the bog.
+There were black clouds of them. Mosquitoes are worse in the short
+Alaska summer than anywhere else in the whole United States, because
+the ground is so wet and the sun so hot. The big brown bears and the
+little black bears that live in Southern Alaska always go to the
+mountains for the summer to get away from the mosquitoes, because on
+the cool, windy mountainsides the maddening insects cannot live. But it
+is a great temptation to come down sometimes and go blueberrying, where
+the berries are thickest.
+
+This old brown bear, Sitka’s mother whispered to him, as they stood
+hiding in the alder thicket, was very likely on his way to the
+mountains for the two hot months. But first he was going to cross the
+bog. “And the mosquitoes will eat him alive.”
+
+Sitka wondered how such tiny insects could harm such a great, shaggy
+brute as the kadiak bear.
+
+“Suppose we watch and find out,” his mother suggested.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BLUEBERRIES AND MOSQUITOES
+
+
+Yes, sir, those mosquitoes will almost eat him alive!” Sitka’s mother
+assured him.
+
+Sitka, wondering greatly, watched, as the huge old kadiak bear lumbered
+across the bog. Sure enough, the mosquitoes followed him in swarms.
+A black cloud of them hung over him, singing their horrid song. They
+settled black on his fur, but that did him no harm. They could not
+reach through to his hide. But there was, of course, no fur to protect
+his eyes and nostrils, and the insects began settling on his eyelids
+and on the tip of his nose till he had to paw them off angrily. And my,
+how they could sting! Every time they poked their beaks into him for
+a drop of blood, they left a tiny drop of poison in the wound, and
+made it burn and swell. By and by the poor old fellow’s eyelids were so
+swollen that he could not open his eyes to see where he was going. He
+just wandered around and around in the bog, till he thought he never
+would find his way out again. He had come that way for the berries, but
+his lips and tongue were now so swollen from the mosquito bites that he
+could not even enjoy the fruit.
+
+But at last he happened to wander near the edge of the bog. Then he
+heard the sound of roaring water, where a river came rushing down the
+mountainside to the sea. Making blindly for the sound, he plunged into
+an icy pool, where he could cool his fevered face. And there he stayed,
+just the tip of his nose above water so he could breathe, until the
+swelling had gone down and he could see to go on up into the mountains.
+
+“Once upon a time,” Sitka’s mother told him, “a big brown bear tried to
+cross the swamp, and the mosquitoes bit him till he couldn’t see, and
+he just wandered around and around in that swamp till he starved to
+death. And all the time, the mosquitoes kept pricking him for the tiny
+drop of his blood that each one got. That is what I meant when I said
+they could fairly eat one alive,--tiny as they are, when there are so
+many of them.”
+
+Sitka looked back wonderingly at the kadiak bear that had had such a
+narrow escape. He was shuffling rapidly up the mountainside.
+
+The next time the polar cub and his mother went exploring, they saw
+a band of Indians camping on the river bank. The women and children,
+dressed in bright hued calicoes, were fishing and gathering berries,
+and cooking fish over little fires. Now fire was something that Sitka
+had never seen before, and it looked so pretty that he wanted to feel
+of one. But Mother White Bear was terribly afraid of fire, because it
+was something she did not understand, and she kept him in hiding among
+the tall ferns. It was dangerous enough, she said, for a white bear to
+go into the woods at all, when the red men were about.
+
+By and by they saw a band of Indian men start up the mountainside.
+When they had passed out of sight, Sitka’s mother began leading him up
+another way. Far ahead, they could see the peaks and hollows filled
+with snow, and she thought it would feel good to roll in the snow
+again. Their fur was much too warm for this kind of weather. Besides,
+she smelled wild mushrooms, and she meant to have a feast. In the snow
+they could hide perfectly, should the red men come near.
+
+There were choice berries and other good things along the way to eat.
+They started following the river, where the rainbow trout leapt out
+of the water every now and again. They padded along as soundlessly
+as possible on their furry feet. The clouds were gathering about the
+peaks, throwing cool shadows over the woods. It would probably rain by
+and by, but they didn’t mind in the least. They really enjoyed being
+out in the rain.
+
+At first their way lay along the bear path where the earth had
+been beaten hard along the river bank. On one side, the icy water
+swirled over rocks and fallen logs, or slid in smooth sheets over the
+gold-specked sands. For this was a land where much gold was found. On
+the other side of the path, rank meadow grass grew high on the moist
+soil, and even Sitka’s mother could not see above its waving tops. The
+cub slipped into the soft black mud, till no one would have believed,
+when his mother fished him out, that he had ever been a little white
+bear.
+
+In this tall grass they could hear queer rustlings,--little squeals and
+scufflings, and Sitka wondered what could be going on in there. By and
+by the grass was not so tall. It was only about as high as Mother White
+Bear. They were on a steep slope now, where the trees had all been
+burned to blackened stumps, and the bunch grass grew. Suddenly a sound
+of many hooves thudded along the ground, and Mother White Bear drew
+Sitka into hiding between two granite boulders. A few minutes later,
+a herd of reindeer went leaping and bounding over the grass and up the
+mountainside. These Alaskan caribou can stand weather 60 degrees below
+zero. But in summer they enjoy three months of feasting on the bunch
+grass.
+
+At last the two bears reached a ridge where they could see ever and
+ever so far. They could look back along the way they had come, across
+the level stretch of grass and down the river glinting in the sun. They
+could even see where the ocean beat against the cliffs in white foam,
+and beyond, where the white bergs drifted. Up here the wind was cold,
+and snow lay in the shady places.
+
+Then that same band of reindeer went leaping across the side of the
+mountain opposite, and on up the steep slopes. After them came racing
+the Indians, trying to head them off and capture them. They use
+reindeer for both horses and cows,--driving them, milking them, and
+using their hide to make their clothing, boats and houses. That is,
+they do, when they capture them. They had all passed out of sight in
+a twinkling and Sitka never knew whether they caught them or not. He
+hoped the beautiful brown animals had escaped.
+
+But that night he found he had troubles of his own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+AN ADVENTURE
+
+
+I do hope our ice-berg doesn’t drift too far away!” said Mother White
+Bear. “We’d spend another day on the mountain, if I thought it was safe
+to.”
+
+“Let’s stay,” begged Sitka.
+
+The way now grew steeper, and the river grew narrower and swifter,
+until the bunch grass gave way to tall ferns and the ground was soft
+with pretty colored mosses. In winter the reindeer paw the snow away
+with their feet and eat these mosses. Next came pale green willows and
+dark green spruce and cedar trees. The Snow Baby, sniffing their piny
+fragrance, rolled delightedly on the soft ground beneath them.
+
+Later the slopes were all wet moss, into which the wee fellow sank so
+deep that his mother tried to lead him along the fallen tree trunks.
+But they too were slippery with moss, and every now and again he would
+slide off and have to be rescued. But then, there were the finest, big,
+juicy berries! Blue-berries, thimble-berries, fat ripe huckleberries,
+tart cranberries, and mild, sweet service-berries. It was a paradise
+for bears!
+
+There were mushrooms, too, growing around the hollow logs, and
+Mother White Bear knew just which it was safe to eat, and which were
+poisonous. My, how she did love mushrooms!
+
+“Mother,” Sitka begged, “let’s stay here all the time.”
+
+But she explained that the summer is very short, just July and August,
+here in this part of the world, and soon would come ice and snow again,
+and they would have to go back to sea, where they could fish. Besides,
+she preferred the sea.
+
+Sitka found it hard to imagine it ever being cold there, where the sun
+shone so hot! But by September, she told him, would come the long
+rains, and the days would grow shorter and shorter, till in mid-winter
+it was terrifically cold on these mountains.
+
+Returning the way they had come, they found the Indians still singing
+and laughing about their little cook-fires. Along the river bank stood
+their baskets heaped with red and purple berries, and Sitka grabbed a
+pawful every chance he got. But Mother White Bear led him away around
+the Indian camp, as softly as she could walk, for “Safety First” was
+her motto where the red men were concerned.
+
+Sitka was exhausted now, and they were eager to get back to their
+cave in the ice-berg. But the little berg, which Mother White Bear
+recognized by its shape, was away off behind two smaller bergs. Her
+first thought was to swim clear around them, but the cub was by now so
+tired and sleepy that he began whimpering and begging her to carry him.
+How she longed to get back to the safety of their cave, where he could
+sleep away the strange, sunlit night.
+
+As the bergs were drifting in the blue summer sea, there was a narrow
+lane of water they might swim between the two new bergs, to reach
+their home. Well, she decided, she would chance it. She was a powerful
+swimmer, and Sitka could cling to her tail. If only those huge chunks
+of ice would stop drifting about so!
+
+She had swum perhaps half this narrow channel when she suddenly became
+aware that the walls of ice that towered on either side were closer
+than when she had started. The two bergs were floating together, and
+the spray that dashed against their sides began to fill her eyes with
+mist, and her ears with the sound of the surf. Sitka, paddling wearily
+along behind her, with her stub of a tail in his mouth, began to squeal
+that he was being drowned, for the waves were chopping right over his
+head.
+
+Mother White Bear redoubled her efforts, knowing that if they did not
+get through the channel quickly, they would surely be crushed between
+those two walls of ice. Anxiously she measured the distance that lay
+ahead, then with a backward glance she made a hasty estimate of the
+distance that lay behind them. Yes, they must be just about half way
+through the channel.
+
+But ahead the space was narrowed till it seemed as if the icy walls
+must clash together before they could pass them. And the tide was all
+against her. Swim as she might, she could not seem to swim fast enough.
+How she wished now that she had taken the long, safe way around. But it
+was too late.
+
+But was it?--If only she were headed the other way, the tide would help
+instead of hinder her. She glanced behind once more. To her surprise,
+the way was widening, instead of narrowing, behind them. In fact, the
+icy walls were drifting together in a V, and they were headed toward
+the point of the V.
+
+Quick as thought, she turned, and began towing the tired Sitka back the
+way they had come. Then the ice ahead came together with a grinding
+roar, and the wave chop nearly strangled them. But she swam on, and the
+wee cub behind her, till they were out in open water. One last mighty
+effort and they were safe! An instant later the icy walls clashed
+again, grinding together until the channel was entirely closed. But
+they were safe!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WOLVES AND SALMON
+
+
+When Mother White Bear saw that they could not get back to their own
+berg, she towed Sitka around the neighboring bergs to see if they could
+not find a new home among them. They were of course tiny bergs,--hardly
+deserving the name, but still affording them cool and comfortable
+shelter through the long daylight nights. But all were too steep to
+climb.
+
+There was nothing for it, then, but to return to shore. As she swam
+back through the icy water, so pleasant after their hot day, she
+wondered where they could hide themselves in the strange brilliance of
+the Alaskan summer night. Nowhere along shore, certainly, with those
+Indians encamped so near, and the excursion steamers of the white men
+passing every now and again.
+
+There seemed nothing for it but to return to the snow fields of the
+high mountains. So long as the summer lasted, there was food in plenty.
+Later the salmon streams would freeze, and they would have to seek
+their fish from the sea. But if they headed generally Northward in
+their wanderings, along the snow-capped range, they would soon be back
+in a land better suited to their heavy furs. Polar bears are, like all
+bears, great wanderers. It was the first time in her life that Mother
+White Bear had ever visited land in summer; but once in early winter
+she had ranged Southward over the pack ice, in which she had denned
+for her winter sleep. The breaking up of the pack in spring had left
+her to summer on an island with Sitka’s older brother, then a wee cub,
+though they had finally made their way back home by swimming many miles
+through the open sea.
+
+Tonight as Sitka and his mother neared shore again, they were startled
+to hear the baying of wolves. They hid behind an up-jutting boulder
+just off shore, and waited to see what was going to happen. Through the
+meadows that here lay between woods and shore came a herd of deer, and
+from their enormous leaps and bounds Mother White Bear decided that it
+must be a matter of life and death.
+
+Behind them the tall grass, man-high, moved here and there as if blown
+by a wind, but it must be something else that moved it. Then out on
+the rocky shore came the terror-stricken deer, and close at their
+heels, there emerged from the concealing grasses three great fierce
+white wolves. The deer were all but exhausted now, for they stumbled
+as they leapt. They must have come a great distance,--perhaps from the
+mountain-sides where they browsed in summer. But the wolves had gained
+on them and the race was nearly done.
+
+Then the leader of the herd, raising his great antlers, leaped into
+the water. After him plunged the others, and away they swam, straight
+toward the rim of a green island that lay off-shore. The wolves
+stopped at the water’s edge, for they are not good swimmers, baying
+their disappointment till the fearful sound echoed and re-echoed from
+the tossing bergs.
+
+But were the three wolves to go hungry? Sitka watched with frightened
+eyes as the trio seated themselves in a row and howled their
+disappointment to the curtain of light that now began to glow in the
+North. There was nothing else to do but to watch the wolves and the
+Aurora, for Mother White Bear would not venture ashore till they had
+gone.
+
+Never would Sitka forget the shimmering silver folds of the curtain
+that hung from the Auroral arch, the star-strewn sky, and the midnight
+sun circling the horizon, glinting pink from the blue-white bergs that
+tossed in the purple sea. The grinding of berg on berg, the smell of
+sea-weed and the weird howling of the wolves, the slap-slap of the
+waves, comfortingly cold against the furry sides of the wanderers from
+the North, and the gurgling of the glacial salmon stream, all these
+things went to make up the scene. Then the silver curtain ceased to
+shimmer, and nothing remained but the long flames of white fire that
+sprang from the zenith.
+
+[Illustration: The wolves stopped at the water’s edge.]
+
+As suddenly as they had appeared, the three wolves were gone, doubtless
+to chase rabbits for their breakfast.
+
+Mother White Bear now led the way back along the same river they had
+explored before. Sitka was tired and sleepy, but she would not stop for
+him to rest till she had him back so high on the mountainside that they
+could burrow into a snow bank. “Now we are safe,” she told him “and we
+can take it leisurely.” Sitka drifted into dreams of catching mammoth
+salmon.
+
+Now Unga’s tribe were of the Eskimos who hunt on the inland ice.
+Probably, no one knew how long ago, their people had come over the ice
+from Greenland, skirting the Arctic Ocean. Those there had been among
+them, the tale had been handed down to them, who, wandering Southward,
+had seen some of the Aleutian Islands born, spewed up as molten rock
+from volcanic depths. Within the memory of Unga’s father two of these
+islands had shot fire into the sky and covered all the sea with ashes.
+Strange sights had been seen in that strange land,--and might be seen
+again. For geography was still in the making.
+
+It was also rumored that tribesmen who had ventured far in their
+bidarkas, venturing from one island to another, had found them leading
+in a chain straight across to Siberia, dividing Bering Sea from the
+Pacific. All this had been repeated around the fire of the council
+house.
+
+Had Sitka and Mother White Bear but known it, they had drifted to
+one of the three great sounds of the West Coast, Bristol Bay, in the
+language of the white man. From this a chain of mountains reached
+North-East to a branch of the Yukon, which mighty river they later
+followed to the sea as it skirted another mountain range. For from the
+Bay, where the air was warmed and moistened by a branch of the current
+that crosses the ocean from Japan, they traversed many a hundred miles
+of mountainside before they reached that river whose red salmon tempted
+them to follow its length.
+
+That river, cut deep by the rush of the spring ice, ran Westward across
+that mighty land to empty into Bering Sea, there to spread fan-wise
+amid a thousand wooded islands into Norton Sound.
+
+But before Sitka and his mother had traversed its length, they had
+skirted the sheer cliffs of foaming gorges, and fought mosquitoes along
+miles of lake-dotted tundra. Their award was that they could often
+creep up on sleeping ducks or plover, who slept in countless thousands
+on these lakes as their clans gathered for the great migration
+Southward for the winter. The two bears were overjoyed when at last,
+after weeks of untiring travel, they could see the waves breaking in
+white mist against the spruce-dark shore. The iron mountains behind
+them shone rose-colored. They had feasted fat on the red and silver
+salmon, and the grayling and whitefish of the teeming river, and now
+at last the only barrier between them and the open sea was a series of
+sand-bars and whirlpools and an excursion steamer, all to be avoided
+with equal care. But that is getting ahead of our story.
+
+The river which cascaded from high up the mountain-side was agleam with
+the shining bodies of samlets, young silver salmon with red spots and
+black markings on their sides. Such luscious fish the little white bear
+had never tasted as those they waded into the stream to catch.
+
+In the spring the parent salmon,--huge, silvery fish with black spots
+on their sides,--had left the sea, with its teeming food supply, to
+swim up-stream to the spawning beds. The gold seekers of ’98 had often
+watched as the agile fish swam through the rushing torrents, leaping up
+the waterfalls as easily and gracefully as a kitten leaps to the top of
+a hedge. High in the mountains, where the stream runs shallow, they had
+laid their eggs and left their young to hatch. And now the stream was
+fairly alive with these samlets, some of them only a few months old,
+some as much as two years. The spring of their third year they would be
+large enough to go down to the sea.
+
+Mother White Bear showed Sitka a salmon laying her eggs. First the
+great four-foot fish lay down in the gravel of the shallows and rounded
+out a nest with her side. There she left hundreds and hundreds of
+tough, elastic shelled eggs, hardly half the size of peas. Before they
+left the eggs to their fate, the parent fish would cover them over with
+gravel so that the water could not wash them away. Out of so many, many
+eggs, surely enough would hatch and survive to fill the river with
+samlets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE BIRTH OF AN ICE-BERG
+
+
+Like all explorers, Sitka and his mother knew not what unexpected
+dangers might lie in their pathway, as they turned their noses
+Northward. But like all explorers, they thrilled at thought of the new
+scenes they might enjoy.
+
+Their way lay first along the crest of the range,--the Northern
+extension of that great mountain system which in California is called
+the Sierra Nevada and in Oregon and Washington the Cascades and the
+Selkirks. The same great upheavals of the earth’s crust, the same
+glaciers and volcanoes, helped to build them all.
+
+In the tonic coolness of the high peaks, Sitka raced and rolled like
+a puppy, plunging whoofing, into the soft snow, or coasting when the
+crust was hard. For a little while this land of sternness, hardship
+and hunger, smiled in the sunshine, and life was not so serious as it
+had been, and would be again. With the abundance of food and exercise,
+Sitka was growing fast. His muscles were as hard as iron. He could go
+for miles over the mountain-sides without tiring. At the same time his
+mother was teaching him a million things a polar bear should know about
+the world in which soon he would have to make his living and defend
+himself against the elements.
+
+They watched an Arctic fox to see how he caught the ptarmigan, those
+brown and white grouse which are so abundant on the lower passes. These
+wild hens of the Arctic, nesting in the snow banks, and gradually
+changing their brown summer costumes for the white of winter, were not
+so well hidden as they would be later, when their camouflage would be
+complete. But try as he might, fat, clumsy Sitka could never creep up
+on them as did the sly white Reynard. He could swim after his salmon
+as the fox could not, but his mouth watered in vain for the ptarmigan.
+
+They gobbled down luscious fungi, those fan-shaped mushrooms that grow
+on birch trees, and they browsed like cattle on the juicy grass that
+had sprung up in the paths of snow-slides. All that was delightful. But
+the cub shivered at the weird, laughing cry of the great Northern loon
+that haunted the glacial lakes.
+
+He was fascinated, though, by the whistlers, (Arctic woodchucks), who
+disappeared into their holes at his approach, peeking out at him, then
+disappearing, peeking and disappearing, till Sitka was frantic with
+the longing to catch one of them. But try as he might, he was never
+quick enough for those little fellows. Their shrill, whistling calls
+tantalized him on every side.
+
+They saw moose and mountain goats, porcupines who gnawed the spruce
+trees without even bothering to look up at them, and ermine who swam
+after their fish, twisting and turning as lithe as eels. They crossed
+glaciers, leaping the crevices and coasting down the slopes of these
+almost motionless rivers of ice. On and on they wandered, through the
+shortening days, now cooled by gray clouds which brought flurries of
+soft snow to the higher slopes. By September they had gales of wind,
+with sleet and hailstones, and the clouds were constantly forming on
+the mountain-tops and sinking lower and lower, till all the tundra
+between the mountains and the sea lay hidden by gray fog. But Sitka
+loved the coldness of it, dressed as he was in his thick white furs,
+and he was the happiest little bear in all Alaska when at last Mother
+White Bear told him they were now far enough North to return to the sea
+in safety.
+
+How many hundreds of miles they had traveled they had no means of
+knowing, but bears are tireless travelers, and polar bears are the most
+tireless of all. The hardest was when they began following the rim
+of one of the narrow ice-carved canyons, with its roaring river, and
+innumerable falls that had to be circled about. But at last they came
+out at a fiord of the sea. The wind of an icy rain was frosting the
+gray-green waves of the great twenty-foot tide and blowing balls of the
+scud into the tree-tops of the encircling woods. The air rang with the
+cries of sea birds. Sitka leaped and frisked after the foam, glorying
+in the salt smell of the sea.
+
+Further out, there were the great bergs growling and grinding against
+one another and making great waves in the fiord. A distant glacier
+cracked with a sound like thunder as a mammoth chunk of it broke
+off and a new berg was born, to toss and splash and cause even more
+excitement among the lashing waves.
+
+“Hurray!” whoofed Sitka. “This feels like home again.” And following
+Mother White Bear, he plunged off the pink limestone cliff into the
+water and started swimming with great, powerful strokes of his fore
+paws.
+
+Had anyone told the cub as he frisked so exuberantly in his favorite
+element that anything ugly and dangerous inhabited those winging
+waves, he would not have believed it. And yet at that very moment--but
+that is another chapter!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MONSTERS OF THE SEA
+
+
+On a sea ruffled to purple in the wind, Mother White bear, busy
+catching fish, glimpsed three large black fins.
+
+Three piratical black fins, farther out at sea, approached like the
+sails of so many fishing dories, all in a row. That, she knew, meant
+orcas--killer whales! With a loud whoof she summoned Sitka to turn back
+and make for shore. He responded with that swift obedience she had
+taught him. But though he was swift, the orcas were swifter. But he was
+not far from a high rock that jutted up out of shoal water. When he had
+scrambled up beside his mother, his legs were trembling and his breath
+quite gone.
+
+When the disappointed orcas had swum away again, their great black
+fins rising from the curve of their backs, and the two white streaks
+on their sides shouting a warning to those that could read it, Mother
+White Bear was reminded of a battle she had once seen between an orca
+and a cachalot, one of the giant sperm whales. Of course Sitka wanted
+the story.
+
+“Fortunately,” said Mother White Bear, “cachalots never come as far
+North as this. It was the time I drifted so far South on the ice that
+I saw this battle. A cachalot mother had come to a quiet inlet off
+the coast of Southern Alaska to rear her baby. It must have been an
+exceptional case, for though I have heard of orcas going far South, I
+never knew of but the one cachalot to come so far North. But a traveler
+such as myself sees many an unusual happening.”
+
+“I’m going to be a traveler, too,” vowed Sitka.
+
+“You certainly will, if you grow up into a regular bear,” she agreed.
+“But first you know that whales are mammals, like bears and dogs, and
+nurse their babies.”
+
+“Honestly?” marvelled Sitka.
+
+“Yes. And the orca mother has a way of carrying her calf tucked behind
+her left flipper, or as it were, in her left arm, and nursing it as
+she lies floating on a quiet sea. Both she and her calf are cream
+colored on their under sides, so that the fish below cannot see them so
+plainly. For of course they live largely on fish.
+
+“She herself is content to eat the great, sluggish fish that live in
+shallow seas, though she is also fond of seals, and I have seen her
+devour one whole. The one I saw and I suppose they are all alike, was
+lean and quick, and could dive and swim with marvelous agility. The
+Eskimos would have found very little blubber on her. And unlike the
+great, stupid, lubberly creatures you saw the Eskimos hunting, this
+particular whale is a good fighter, as you shall see, and cunning too.
+But with all this, she loves her calf.”
+
+“What happened?” begged Sitka impatiently.
+
+“I was watching from a cliff,” continued Mother White Bear. “First I
+saw this cachalot mother nursing her calf under her left flipper, and
+I was amazed that such a huge creature could be so gentle. For this
+giant creature had a head nearly a third of her entire size, and she
+could open her jaws till you and I could have found room to den up for
+the winter right in her mouth. And that huge mouth was armed with teeth
+that could have crunched you in one bite.” Sitka shuddered.
+
+“Then I saw a band of orcas coming. She saw them, too, and started out
+to meet them, but it meant leaving her calf behind, and she turned back
+to the little fellow, perhaps afraid that something might come by and
+eat him while her back was turned. But if she stayed, the orcas would
+get him. So she turned once more to meet their advancing front. Picture
+that row of black fins coming all in a row!
+
+“Well, that cachalot just simply opened that huge mouth of hers and
+snapped her jaws on the first orca she could reach, and the water
+turned red around them!--The other orcas,--there were five of them in
+that pack,--tried to swim around either side of her, at a good safe
+distance, but she was so afraid they would reach her calf that she
+chased them ferociously, without a thought for her own safety, and you
+would have laughed to see these same orcas, these dread killer whales,
+turning tail and admitting their defeat, five to one that they were!
+But they would have stood not a chance with those great jaws of hers,
+swift and fierce as the orcas were.”
+
+“Everything is afraid of something else, isn’t it, Mother?” said Sitka.
+
+“There is nothing I fear for myself save wolves,” said Mother White
+Bear.
+
+“I am afraid of that Eskimo boy,” Sitka admitted.
+
+“And perhaps he is afraid of you.”
+
+“And of orcas?” the little bear surmised.
+
+ Note--The Eskimos around Bering Sea believe that the killer whales are
+ wolves in sea form. They tell it that when the world was young the
+ wolves of the land used to enter the sea, changing their form as they
+ did so and becoming orcas. When they returned to land, they changed
+ back to wolves. To this day the little brown men fear the orca as the
+ wolf of the sea.
+
+A sweep of her paw and Mother White Bear had landed a shining fish,
+which she proceeded to eat, bidding Sitka go catch one for himself. For
+he needed practice.
+
+After they had both dined and slept, and felt ready to go on, they swam
+about thirty miles fairly close to shore. A polar bear can swim forty
+miles at a stretch if she has to. Sitka tired, and his mother allowed
+him to tow himself along by her tail once in a while to rest him. And
+again they caught fish and climbed aboard a floating ice pan to sleep
+the lengthening night away.
+
+That was their program for many days,--swimming so close to shore that
+they could see the ragged outline of the pointed green-black firs when
+it was not too foggy. The thunder of the surf was in their ears, and
+the taste of the bitter brine was in their nostrils, for the wind blew
+the sea into foam.
+
+Then one day, their first sunny day in weeks, they came to the edge of
+the pack ice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TOOTH AND FANG
+
+
+The winter sun circled lower and lower about the horizon as the ice
+packed more and more solidly in the bay. By the first of November it
+was forty degrees below zero. But Sitka and his mother loved it.
+
+They had fed fat all fall, in preparation for their long winter sleep.
+Then Sitka had grown amazingly. He could now swim under ice, if he had
+to escape the lunge of some infuriated walrus, or he could fell a seal
+with one blow of his powerful fore-arm.
+
+Now that they were back on the pack-ice, they often saw Unga, the
+Eskimo boy who had tried to capture Sitka as a wee cub. Mother White
+Bear could not forgive that escapade. Sometimes the boy tried to creep
+up on the white cub when he was a little separated from his mother,
+and the lad vowed to the boys of his village that the cub’s fur should
+be his.
+
+The little Eskimo and his tribe lived on a peninsula that reached far
+out into the polar sea, now all pack-ice, which rose in ridges like
+the waves of the sea it covered. Their igloos were cunningly fashioned
+of stone blocks into huts as round as bee-hives, and had to be entered
+by stooping low through a winding tunnel, and finally getting down on
+hands and knees. But once inside, they were as warm as the lamp of
+blubber with its wick of moss could make it, and these hardy people
+half hibernated comfortably enough through weather sixty below zero.
+
+Unga, like all Eskimos, had to make it his chief concern in life to
+find enough to eat,--and he loved bear meat best of all. Second, he
+had to have warm clothing, and warm bedding, or he would die. Bear fur
+was his favorite blanket, and bearskin the material of which his tribe
+fashioned their knickerbockers. After his fourteenth year he used to
+join the bands who went out, for weeks and sometimes months at a time
+in summer, taking skin tents on their dog sleds, in search of the great
+white bears, and the half-human track of one of these in the snow,
+plainly visible even in the blue moonlight of the Arctic dusk,--would
+send a thrill of delight down Unga’s spine. The black eyes and nose
+tip, which was all that could be seen of the snowy animals against the
+snow, unless they moved, was the signal for setting the dogs on their
+trail. But Sitka always had the presence of mind to run against the
+wind, so that the dogs could not scent him. Most of the time he kept
+well out at sea.
+
+When the ice lay shiny and free of snow, however, bears and Eskimos
+alike used to go seal hunting in the famine of spring. That way, Sitka
+and Unga often met. Their method of hunting was curiously alike, for
+Unga tied fur to his feet and his tread was noiseless. As a seal would
+come up to its breathing hole in the ice, a series of loud blowing
+sounds meant that it was filling its lungs for a dive. At this time
+the hunter boy or bear, could approach unheard. Between whiles he laid
+low behind a furrow of the ice. If the seal took alarm, the boy, lying
+flat on his stomach, would cunningly move his feet like seal’s hind
+flippers and so deceive his intended victim. Sitka learned that trick
+of him. Then would come the boy’s harpoon, or the bear’s harpooning
+claws, thrust through the hole into the head of the disappearing seal.
+
+In their igloos these stubby, fur-clad little brown people, who were
+Unga’s people, would spend the winter half starving and half feasting
+on their occasional catch of seal or bear meat. Sitka often used to
+see them racing through the twilight of the autumn day behind their
+dog-sleds, the crackling of their whips echoing from the great bergs.
+
+The water, where it lay open, now shone blue-black under the long
+night, and the seals remained somewhere below the ice-pack, save when
+they came to poke their noses through their air-holes. Sitka found he
+was just able to scramble through the larger air holes.
+
+One day the air was such a mist of falling flakes that Sitka and his
+mother could not see two steps before them. The swirl and drift of
+the on-coming blizzard fairly carried them off their feet. Then came
+sharp ice spicules that filled the air blindingly and cut into their
+nostrils. “It is high time we found a place to hibernate,” decided
+Mother White Bear. But wander as they would, through the dark and the
+drift, they could find neither cave nor shelter. Sitka grew terribly
+sleepy, and would have curled up on the naked ice, but that his mother
+insisted on keeping up the search for a few days longer.
+
+Then one day--the first warning came as a swirl of snow. In five
+minutes the wind from the mountains had lifted them bodily and flung
+them down on the ice. Nor would the on-coming storm allow them to rise
+to their feet again, but blew them along, till, with a roar that
+nearly split their eardrums, black darkness pressed upon them. In that
+same instant they went over the edge of a fissure that cut a deep V in
+the ice.
+
+ Note--In the face of storms like these, Peary and other white
+ explorers (aided by the Eskimos) have sought to make their way into
+ our “farthest North.”
+
+Their fall was softened by the snow that filled the crevice, and
+turning their misfortune into good, they welcomed the shelter it gave
+them from the freezing wind, and huddled together till the storm should
+have done its worst. The snow drifted in upon them, but the warmth
+of their breathing kept a little air space melted about their faces.
+But Mother White Bear knew better than to spend the winter in such a
+dangerous place.
+
+Later they had a dreadful time scrambling up the slippery sides of
+their prison, but they clung with their steel claws to every roughness
+of the ice walls, and finally flung themselves over the edge.
+
+Another time it was the Eskimo village they unwittingly wandered into
+in the storm. It was an igloo with its winding entrance tunnel against
+which they had taken shelter, and within that igloo--as luck would
+have it--lived the boy who had set his heart on having Sitka’s fur.
+
+When, three days later, the two bears were awakened by hearing a savage
+snarling as the husky dogs began digging them out, they realized that
+it was to be tooth and fang if they were to get out of the place alive.
+
+Savage as wolves were the great gray dogs of Unga’s father’s sledge
+team. Savage and hungry!--And fond of bear meat!--It was a circle of
+fangs they faced as they rose on their haunches to meet the foe. But
+Sitka and Mother White Bear had fangs of their own, and what was more
+to their advantage, each powerful fore-paw was armed with a set of
+razor-sharp claws, and each fist could have felled any dog on whose
+skull it could land a blow.
+
+Fortunately for the two bears, Unga was asleep in the igloo when the
+trouble started. “Snap!” went the jaws of the foremost husky dog, the
+leader of the team, a savage brute, half wolf.--Sitka’s paw barely
+escaped. Then “swish” went Sitka’s right fore-paw, ripping the husky’s
+side in a long red gash. “Snap!” “Snap!” “Swish!” raged the combat, the
+two bears just holding their own against a semicircle of five huskies.
+Mother White Bear could handle four to Sitka’s one.
+
+It all happened in a twinkling. Then just as Mother White Bear gave the
+cub the signal to make a dash with her for the open, on came two more
+huskies who had broken loose from a team that stood harnessed within
+sound of the rumpus.
+
+“Slash! slash!” went Mother White Bear, sending the two new dogs
+howling. “Biff, biff, biff!” and she had keeled over three more of her
+foes. “Slash!” went Sitka, nearly finishing another of the huskies.
+Just as he wheeled to follow his mother, Unga appeared at the door of
+the tunnel, bone-tipped spear in hand. “Biff!” went Sitka, whirling
+like a spinning top, just happening to knock the spear out of his
+enemy’s hand.
+
+In that instant of time, Mother White Bear had disappeared, doubling
+and dodging through the igloos with one dog nipping at her heels.
+Sitka sped frantically to one side, knowing nothing of where he was
+headed. By one of those chances, so-called, that sometimes happen, he
+came to a seal hole. It was a tight squeeze, but he just managed to
+dive through it before two of the huskies he had wounded would have
+been upon him.
+
+It was the cache of the white explorers that finally reunited Sitka,
+the little white bear, and his mother.
+
+The ship of the white men lay frozen fast in the harbor, till Spring
+should once more come to the Arctic Circle; and two weeks travel by
+dog-sled, a ton of dried salmon to be fed to their sledge dogs lay
+beneath a rock pile. But though the fish lay hidden beneath rock and
+ice and snow, it was not hidden from the sharp noses of Sitka and
+Mother White Bear. No sooner had the great storm subsided than those
+noses, which peopled the Alaskan world with a million odors no human
+being could detect,--those wonderful noses of theirs caught the odor
+of that salmon. And my! how they clawed away the rocks with their
+powerful claws, and my! how they feasted! Their furry white sides
+fairly stuck out before they had finished. Though it was time for their
+long winter sleep, they could keep alive on that through all the bitter
+polar night. It was a rare piece of good fortune for the two travelers.
+
+After that they found a cave in the ice, tiny, but snug, and large
+enough for the pair of them to curl up together comfortably.
+
+In the spring Sitka discovered that he had grown enormously while he
+slept. He could now tease the old bull walruses to his heart’s content,
+mischievously stealing their clams every time their clumsy backs were
+turned, with no fear of being overtaken and punished.
+
+He even caught himself a bellowing walrus calf for dinner. Life would
+no longer be so serious to young Sitka, for there remained absolutely
+nothing in all the seas that he feared.
+
+Of course, on land, there were the fierce Arctic wolves and the wolfish
+husky dogs. But he had little intention of going near either of these.
+
+He feared neither cold nor darkness now, nor anything in all that white
+world save one living creature. He remembered the Eskimo lad with his
+spear, and his strange way of walking on his hind legs and wearing
+other animals’ fur, and him he did fear when next they met, with such
+a fear when again the boy pursued him that the little bear ran for his
+life.
+
+Mother White Bear finally decided that they should spend the summer
+far out at sea. They could ramble over the ice floes as far as Bering
+Strait, catching fish along the way and keeping a sharp eye out for any
+such delicacy as a chunk of whale blubber left behind at the Eskimo
+hunting grounds.
+
+As the sun circled higher and higher, they began to come across bird
+colonies on the rocky islets,--auks sitting in prim rows along the edge
+of the cliffs, gulls robbing the little puffins, with a clamor of
+their shrill “ka-ka-ka,” of their catch of herring, sometimes the auks
+robbing the nesting gulls of their one precious egg. Again the pirate
+skuas darted hawklike to rob the auks of their one precious egg. It was
+a hard land, and bird and beast were hard of heart, for it was a bitter
+struggle just to keep alive.
+
+Sitka and his mother had fine times breakfasting on birds’ eggs.
+
+How the little white bear loved the thunder of the surf, the crackle of
+floes breaking from the ice-fields, and the roar of ice-berg grinding
+against berg!
+
+He loved the gray fog and the smell of the bitter brine, and the sleety
+rain of which they had so much. In his warm white furs he would have
+found sunshine uncomfortable. He enjoyed this trip better than their
+accidental visit of the summer before on the South-floating berg.
+
+Never did he tire of staring at the Auroras, and the glaciers glowing
+with the reflection of the stars.
+
+Later in the summer Mother White Bear became acquainted with a handsome
+great nine-foot polar bear who was a champion in several ways. He could
+swim forty miles through the icy seas, and he had come off victorious
+in many a battle with wolves and Eskimos. As the long daylight warmed
+the air, they two used to go on long fishing trips, leaving Sitka
+behind,--though the first thing that youngster knew, he was so big
+and self-reliant that he really preferred to explore the ice floes by
+himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+“LET THERE BE PEACE”
+
+
+Once the next fall Sitka again met the Eskimo, who again pursued him
+with his spear. This time the little bear made a great dive into the
+sea and swam to safety under water.
+
+But apparently the little brown boy was determined to have his
+hide,--as determined as the little white bear was to keep it. For Unga
+had boasted in his village that he meant to get that bear. He had vowed
+to have Sitka’s great fur coat.
+
+The next year, when Sitka had grown larger still, and Mother White Bear
+was too busy with his new little brother to pay him any attention, the
+Eskimo nicked his ear with his bone-pointed spear. After that he knew
+him by that nicked ear. The year after he grazed Sitka’s side, and
+Sitka turned and pursued him angrily, as determined now to get the boy
+as the boy was to get the bear.
+
+Year after year went by, while Sitka grew into a huge white monster,
+and Unga developed into a lithe little brown-faced man clad in the fur
+of his kill. And it came to pass that the Eskimo’s one great desire
+was to carry Sitka’s pelt to his igloo and deliver his boast to the
+admiring eyes of his village. And Sitka knew that the Eskimo youth
+would never leave him in peace while they both should live.
+
+One autumn when Sitka was ten years old and the Eskimo twenty, they had
+both gone far inland over the Arctic barrens, and both for the same
+reason, in the hope of securing some reindeer meat. As it happened, a
+hoard of the great, white Arctic wolves had also followed the deer.
+
+One night Sitka stood gazing at the most wonderful Aurora he had ever
+seen. Brilliant bars of light colored like the rainbow marched across
+the Northern sky-line,--always from West to East. Suddenly across the
+glowing North stalked a row of seven of the great white wolves. Failing
+to find the reindeer, and seeing Sitka so far from his native seas,
+they began circling toward him; and though the lone bear knew better
+than to hope to fight off so many foes, and though he took to his heels
+with all swiftness, the wolves were swifter, and soon he was baring
+fang and claw to a circle of famished green eyes and slavering jaws.
+Sitka reared himself on his great haunches, towering tall above them,
+that he might sell his life dearly.
+
+But Unga had also seen the seven wolves, white against the ruddy sky.
+And he had seen the great white bear prints, and knew that his old-time
+foe was near. Now, he told himself with chagrin, the wolves would get
+the bear, not he,--and he could never bring the great white pelt to his
+village in the pride of his long-time boast.
+
+Like the flight of a falling star a bright idea shot into his head. He,
+armed as he was with the musket the white men had given his father,
+would fight the wolves off the bear! Then he would still have a chance,
+some day, of getting the bear himself.
+
+With the fire-arm that spoke death from afar, he came running to meet
+the wolves. With his musket that out-marvelled the sharpest spear he
+brought down the foremost wolf. But the shot only wounded that great
+beast, so white against the surrounding whiteness,--it did not stop
+him long. The surprise of that gave the little brown man pause. A new
+thought appalled him. Should his gun fail too often, might he not find
+himself in danger?
+
+On came the ravening wolf pack, and back fell the Eskimo with his
+weapon that here broke a leg and there caused the red blood to flow,
+but did not stop the wolves. Soon Unga was standing back to back with
+the great white bear, within the narrowing circle of their foes, aware
+that not the bear’s life alone, but his own, lay largely in Sitka’s
+fighting powers.
+
+But though the great bear unaided could not have felled so many foes,
+who darted now on this side, now on that, under his guard in intent to
+ham-string him, nor could the Eskimo alone have handled so many with
+even the best of weapons, between them they put first one, then another
+of the attacking hoard to rout. Where the great bear was taken at a
+disadvantage, the Eskimo came to the rescue. Where the little brown man
+would have been overwhelmed, the mailed white forearm of his furry foe
+sent one more of their common foes to writhing in an agony of deep-cut
+wounds. Now the leader wolf had turned the brunt of his ferocity on the
+weaker animal, which was the man. But Unga’s musket, pointed close,
+blew the old wolf’s head off. Then the next in leadership of the wolf
+pack approached the bear, keen to dart under his mailed fist, that
+guarded his vitals, and out again before punishment descended. But the
+lightning swiftness of that mailed fist was aided by the roar of the
+man-made weapon close at his head, and he was done for.
+
+All this while the little brown man recognized with amazement that for
+himself as well as the bear it had become a matter of life and death.
+They two stood back to back, comrades of battle, with Sitka, red-eyed
+and furious, turning the tide of battle in his favor. And twin to the
+thought, he also recognized that, were it not for his musket, the bear
+would soon have been laid low on the snow instead of the mangled wolves.
+
+The bear also was bleeding, as was the little brown man, but both would
+heal quickly, as the wounds were not deep. But the wolves lay dead at
+their feet.
+
+The bear stood licking his wounds, while the Auroral curtain shot
+beauty across the frozen sky, as if nothing but beauty could exist in
+all the white Arctic world. Sitka was too blinded with blood to see
+his remaining enemy,--his life-long enemy, more feared by far than the
+wolves had ever been. Unga could have got him then. But he didn’t!
+
+He had fought side by side with this great furry fellow, with their two
+lives in the balance. He had fought to save the bear, and the bear’s
+good fight had saved his own life. They were fellow fighters! They had
+fought together,--and won!
+
+It came to him then that he no longer wanted the pelt of the plucky
+brute. He no longer cared to make it his boast in the village nor wear
+it before his igloo. Why, he owed a debt of gratitude to that bear, and
+the bear was already his in the sense that he had saved him. Besides,
+the great white beast, whom he had watched from the days of his wee,
+fat cub-hood,--this dumb brute who would now be so helpless against the
+pointing of the man-made musket,--had he not fairly won his life and
+freedom?
+
+“Do you go your way, and I will go mine,” he said in his heart, and by
+some strange telepathy, Sitka in his heart understood. “Henceforth, let
+there be peace between us!”
+
+The little brown man sped away into the Arctic night, to the East where
+the reindeer herded, and Sitka shambled off toward the West, where the
+fish of the sea never failed him.
+
+
+
+
+FINNY-FOOT
+
+I. THE WATER PUPPY
+
+
+Finny-Foot first opened his round, wondering eyes on a world of
+sun-kissed waves, deep blue beneath a deep blue sky.
+
+The waves slapped in white foam against the rocks, and the sky foamed
+with white wind clouds. The rocks were slippery with sea-weed, and
+shone as sleek as the wet brown fur of the seals. Finny-Foot’s woolly
+white coat, which is what Harbor Seal babies always wear their first
+spring, made him look like just another of the fat white balls of foam
+that the April wind tossed up and down the yellow sand of the beach.
+But the gray gulls flying over-head knew, and called to one another to
+see the new water puppy.
+
+His parents, like the aunts and uncles and grandfather of the little
+colony, wore gray, like the ocean on a dull day, with spots of darker
+gray. But the new young cousins were all white like Finny-Foot.
+
+In the beginning, while Mother Nature was still trying first one kind
+of animal, and then another, to see which made the best pattern, these
+water puppies had lived on land, and had outside ears like any other
+dog, and four short legs on which to carry their fat, furry bodies.
+Then their great-great-ever-so-great grand-parents had decided to live
+on the rocks of the harbors up and down the sea-shore, where it would
+be easier to catch the fish on which they lived. Of course then Mother
+Nature changed their legs to “flippers” or fin-feet, so that it would
+be easier for them to swim. That is why seals look so much like fish,
+with their fore flippers for fins and their hind ones held together
+like a tail.
+
+They bark like dogs, though, and those finny-looking fore-feet help
+them to crawl about on land, as well as swim. Of course now that they
+have become water animals, their ears are all covered with fur, so that
+you might think they didn’t have any ears at all. But they can hear a
+fish swim by, for all that.
+
+At first Finny-Foot cried when he was hungry, in a voice almost like
+that of a human baby, and was nursed like any other puppy. Then he
+learned to eat the tender young sea salmon that his mother caught for
+him,--and the clams and scallops that she found and shelled for him.
+It was a pleasant life. He had nothing to do but tumble about with the
+other seal babies, or lie watching the gulls that circled back and
+forth with the big, salt-smelling waves, singing in their hoarse voices
+that sounded so like rusty hinges, and watching for fish they might
+grab.
+
+One day, too, the whole sky seemed covered with a mammoth flock of
+ducks, (Surf Scoters), who were going to Alaska for the summer, where
+they would not find it so crowded when their young were hatched. For
+hours the V-shaped flocks swept Northward in a gray-black cloud,
+while the air rang with their musical whistle. Finny-Foot stared, his
+puppy-like eyes round with wonder, but at last they all disappeared
+into the blue distance. There must have been hundreds and thousands and
+millions of them. How he wished he, too, might travel and see the world
+beyond those rocks! He little dreamed how soon his wish was to come
+true, nor in what an amazing fashion.
+
+His mother kept his oily fur sleek and shining, so that he could slide
+through the water easily, and he had no trouble at all about learning
+to swim. Soon he could catch a tiny fish in his jaws, if he swam after
+it fast enough, and his fur turned gray in leopard-like spots.
+
+One day, though, these happy, quiet times came to a sudden end. At
+first the only thing he noticed was a row of half a dozen long black
+fins cutting through the waves, far out at sea. Swiftly the black fins
+came nearer, then an up-toss of their heads showed the circling gulls a
+row of mammoth jaws, armed with the most murderous-looking teeth. It
+was a band of killer whales, and at the sight, every seal on the rocks
+started swimming for shore as fast as he could go.
+
+Finny-Foot’s mother towed him with her when his strength gave out, and
+so great was her fright that she never stopped till she had him far up
+on the sandy beach, where the whales could not follow. Those of their
+colony who were not swift enough got caught, and were devoured by the
+fish-shaped monsters who were not fish, and whose ugly black sides bore
+white patches that glistened in the sun. Each one had a fin on the
+middle of his back that stuck straight up, so that you could see it a
+long way off. It was that that had given them warning.
+
+All afternoon they waited on the beach. Then at last the row of black
+fins headed out to sea, and it was deemed safe by Grandfather Seal to
+return to the rocks and fish for supper. And to hear them barking under
+the moon that night, watching the white foam blowing down the beach in
+the wind, no one would have known the bloody fate that they had so
+narrowly escaped.
+
+[Illustration: She never stopped till she had him on the sandy beach.]
+
+But the killer whales came back next day, and this time took them so
+nearly by surprise that there was not time to swim to shore, and those
+who could not scramble to the highest point of the highest rock were
+swallowed whole. How they huddled together upon that high rock, while
+the killers swam around and around them watching to see if one of
+them would not fall off into the water where they could reach them!
+Finny-Foot’s mother tucked him into a crevice and stood over him. No
+use for his father, and the other fathers, even to put up a fight
+against the killers. They wouldn’t have had a chance in the world.
+But once more the whales swam back to sea, and this time they did not
+return; for they, too, were on their way to Alaska, where they hoped to
+catch the fur seals as they migrated Southward.
+
+One day that summer, when Finny-Foot’s mother and her neighbors felt
+quite sure there were no killers about, (Grandfather had been watching
+the sea all day with his big, round eyes), they decided to have a
+picnic, and explore some rocks further out in Monterey Harbor, where
+the painted boats of the fishermen pass.
+
+It proved to be a wonderful fishing-ground. Finny-Foot, forgetting his
+mother’s command to stay close by her side, swam out to the dories, his
+round eyes bulging with wonder at the way they pulled up their netfuls
+of fish. Then he saw a big salmon that he wanted to catch.
+
+The fish made a sudden dive, and Finny-Foot, taking a deep breath, dove
+after him. The next thing he knew, he was all tangled up in something.
+Then he was lifted straight into the air, in the midst of a netful of
+wriggling, flapping fish.
+
+“Father!” cried a black-eyed little boy. “See what I’ve caught!
+Oo!--May I have it?”
+
+
+
+
+II. PIETRO’S[2] PET
+
+
+When Finny-Foot, the seal baby, found himself in the fisherman’s net,
+he never once thought how easy it would be to catch one of the fish
+wriggling all about him.
+
+[2] Note--Pronounce Pya tro.
+
+His first thought was surprise that he should be rising out of the
+water against his will. Then he was afraid. He had never seen a human
+being so close before. Sometimes he had barked, with the family group
+on seal rocks, as people came to watch them from the beach. Then he
+would swim to the other side of the rocks to wait till all was safe
+once more.
+
+It was a boy of nine whose black eyes first spied Finny-Foot as the net
+was emptied. “Pietro” his father called him. His cheeks were flushed
+with the kiss of the California sun, and his black curls blew in the
+breeze, as he stood bare-footed in the fishing-boat. This boy spoke
+words that Finny-Foot, of course, could not understand. But he read the
+kindness in his tones, and he felt the gentleness with which the boy
+stroked his furry head, and he was no longer quite so frightened.
+
+The boy must have asked his father if he might have the seal for a pet,
+because in another moment he was hugging him joyously, both arms tight
+around him, while the fish squirmed at their feet, and the man and his
+partner set sail for home.
+
+But though Finny-Foot was no longer so afraid of being killed and
+eaten, as the killer whales would have eaten him, swallowing the little
+fellow whole, he suddenly realized that he was a long way from home and
+mother. Putting his fore flippers on Pietro’s shoulder, he began to
+cry, and you would never believe how much it sounded like a human baby
+crying for its mother.
+
+Pietro stroked his wet, oily, fishy-smelling fur, which was as soft as
+a kitten’s, and tried to comfort him, but still the seal baby wailed
+his loneliness.
+
+His mother heard him, too, and came swimming after the boat, her great
+eyes questioning his round, frightened eyes, as he peered over Pietro’s
+shoulder. But when he struggled to get free, the boy only held him the
+tighter, and Pietro and the men had their eyes on the course ahead, for
+the stiffening wind was carrying them along at a great rate. But she
+followed as far as she could, then sadly gave it up and went back to
+tell the colony what had happened.
+
+By and by it occurred to Pietro that his pet might be hungry, and he
+offered him a little fish. Finny-Foot ate it eagerly, and the boy
+laughed at his round, puppy-like head, and kitten-like whiskers, and
+the clever fore fins that he had instead of arms. He looked like a
+fish, in one way, too, with his hind flippers held back close together
+like a tail.
+
+When they had landed at Fisherman’s Wharf and Pietro had carried the
+pale, spotty-coated little fellow to the shack where the nets hung
+drying, young Finny-Foot surprised the boy by walking across the
+porch. It was a funny walk, but we will have to call it that, because
+it certainly was not swimming. First the seal would raise himself on
+his fore nippers, then draw himself forward, with a hump of his back.
+Sometimes he used his hind flippers, and sometimes he kicked them
+together straight up in the air. The other fishermen’s children greeted
+this performance with shrieks of laughter; and they offered him fish
+till Pietro had to put a stop to it, for fear Finny-Foot would over-eat.
+
+He got his mother’s wash-tub and filled it with sea water for his
+strange visitor; then, with the help of some of his young neighbors, he
+rolled a great rock up on the porch beside it, in the sunshine. There,
+he felt, the little seal might feel at home. Then he hooked the screen
+door on the inside, so that no one could get in to tease him.
+
+Finny-Foot was a tiny fellow. His mother had been only five feet long,
+for she was a harbor or leopard seal, not a fur seal. Her tribe, an
+old sailorman told Pietro, are found everywhere, from the Arctic Ocean
+to South Carolina on the Atlantic side and Southern California on the
+Pacific. All up and down the coast, this old sailor had seen harbor
+seals, barking on the rocks and fishing on the sandy bars. He had heard
+they even swam away up some of the big rivers and into the Great Lakes.
+They have been seen off the coast of the British Isles, and as far away
+as Japan.
+
+Finny-Foot soon learned to know the boy as his friend, and inside of
+a week was genuinely fond of him. He loved to have Pietro stroke his
+silky fur. He would come humping himself along to where the boy sat in
+the sunshine, mending his father’s nets, and lay his round, white head
+against his arm, and make a funny puppy-like sound that the boy came to
+understand meant: “Please come and play with me!”
+
+Then Pietro would teach him to fetch and carry a stick, or some other
+simple trick. He longed to try throwing the stick in the water for
+Finny-Foot to retrieve, but he never felt quite sure that his odd pet
+would swim back to him.
+
+An old seaman used to watch the seal at his antics. One day he offered
+the boy a dollar for his pet. He said he wanted to take Finny-Foot on
+board the whaling vessel for a mascot, to bring them luck. But the boy
+would not part with him.
+
+The next day the old sailor offered him five dollars, but still Pietro
+would not listen. His ship was to sail the next day at dawn, and the
+boy heaved a sigh of relief when, with a final offer of seven dollars,
+the old man said goodbye. The money would have meant needed clothes to
+the fisherman’s boy, but he would not part with his pet.
+
+Then as Pietro was looking at a newspaper that someone had left on the
+wharf, his eyes caught the picture of a troupe of trained seals rolling
+barrels. They were to be in next week’s vaudeville show, and Pietro
+resolved to find a way to see it.
+
+
+
+
+III. THE TRAINED SEALS
+
+
+“I’ve got a trained seal,” Pietro told the man at the ticket window, as
+he stood on tip-toe to buy his seat. He had earned the quarter mending
+a net for a neighbor on Fisherman’s Wharf.
+
+“What’s that?” demanded a sharp-eyed man behind him, who happened to be
+the owner of the show.
+
+Pietro told him about Finny-Foot.
+
+“Where do you live?” the man asked, with a peculiar gleam in his eye.
+But the boy was too over-awed by the mirrored magnificence of the
+theatre to wonder at the question.
+
+The whole program, the usual vaudeville, entranced him. But when the
+trained seals appeared, his heart thrilled with delight. The curtain
+rose on a row of the clumsy fellows seated in a circle on up-turned
+barrels, barking in chorus.
+
+First came a barrel-rolling contest, at which the audience applauded
+mightily, as it is rare to see trained seals. Pietro assured himself
+Finny-Foot did as well as the best of them. There was a trick seal who
+was always hiding from the showman. There was a mother seal in trailing
+skirts and plumed hat, holding her baby in her flappers. (The little
+seal looked too cunning in his white bonnet and long dress). There
+were other tricks, and every move the animals made, with their awkward
+flappers, sent the audience into gales of laughter. There was even a
+seal orchestra, which set Pietro wondering how they could hold their
+violins. He could not see that both instrument and bow were tied in
+place. The showman rewarded each performer with a fish, just as Pietro
+did Finny-Foot. The big bull seal at the kettle drums would hammer away
+with all his might till he saw the man approach, then he would open his
+jaws for his fish and eat it, before again taking part in the symphony.
+
+But the thing everyone enjoyed the most was when a large glass tank
+was drawn on the stage. On an up-standing rock in the middle lay three
+seals, barking just as they might have off the shore of Monterey. The
+showman threw in a fish, and all three dove for it. He threw them
+another, and another, then a whole handful of small, silver-shining
+fingerlings, and the seals dove again and again for them, bringing them
+up in their jaws and holding them down with one flapper while they ate,
+if they were too large to swallow whole.
+
+Pietro went home as proud as a peacock to think that his seal could do
+tricks as good as those people paid to see.
+
+That evening, just as he had seated himself on the porch in the sunset
+glow, with Finny-Foot scrambling awkwardly for his supper, the showman
+appeared.
+
+“Now where is that seal?” he asked briskly.
+
+Finny-Foot was put through his paces, the boy proud and flattered by
+the showman’s interest.
+
+“What will you take for him?” the man asked at last. “I need another
+seal for my pyramid act.”
+
+“What’s that?” Pietro’s father called through the window.
+
+“I’ll give you five dollars for that seal,” said the showman, holding
+out a green-back.
+
+“But I don’t want to sell him,” said Pietro promptly.
+
+“Better take it,” advised his father. “It will buy a new coat for
+school.”
+
+“Do I have to, Father?”
+
+“As you please. It is your seal.”
+
+The showman added a dollar to the five in his hand. Pietro looked at
+the money, then at his ragged jacket. Six dollars would mean a lot to
+him. Then he looked down at Finny-Foot, whose round, puppy-like eyes
+were fastened on his trustingly. He wondered if the showman was kind to
+his seals. Then he remembered the whip he had snapped at them when they
+were slow to obey a command. Besides, how could a seal be happy so far
+from the ocean he loved? He remembered the old seal who lay all day on
+the side-walk of the Cliff House beach.
+
+“No!” decided the fisherman’s boy. Nor did the offer of more money
+change his mind. He only hugged his pet to his ragged coat and shook
+his curly head. Nor could the showman persuade Pietro’s father to
+interfere.
+
+After that the boy fell to thinking. Soon school would begin, and he
+must have shoes. One bright morning he took Finny-Foot in his arms,
+and made his way to the Ferry Building, where he sometimes earned a
+dime carrying someone’s suitcase. He was followed by a troupe of small
+boys and a dozen older people, who closed in about him in a circle
+when he set the seal on the ground. Borrowing an empty barrel from
+a man he knew at a fruit-stand, he began putting the seal through
+his barrel-rolling trick. Then he passed his hat. Nickels, dimes and
+pennies came pouring in,--mostly from the grown-up portion of his
+audience. When the next ferry-boat landed, pouring a new audience into
+the facade, he repeated his show. A third time he put Finny-Foot
+through his paces, and then passed the hat.
+
+A policeman stopped him. It seemed that there were several reasons why
+he could not give another show. But he had already earned enough money
+to buy the new shoes.
+
+After that Pietro had to leave Finny-Foot shut up all day while he went
+to school, and the young seal did not thrive. No longer would he caper
+joyously after the fish that were thrown him. No longer did his fur
+gleam velvety and his brown eyes shine. Pietro realized that a seal
+does not belong on dry land. He needs to live on the rocks off-shore,
+where he can dive for his dinner. Finny-Foot might even be homesick for
+the other seals. The boy’s heart ached with pity.
+
+Then he had an idea! When Saturday came, he went with his father in the
+fishing dory, and with them went Finny-Foot.
+
+They were not heading toward where Pietro had found his pet, but he
+waited till he had scanned the water in every direction to make sure
+there were no sharks, then he gave Finny-Foot one last pat on his
+puppy-like head, and hugged him, and let him slip into the water.
+
+The young seal, joyous with the feel of the salt tide, and never once
+thinking that he was leaving his friend, struck out for a point of
+rock he could just see above the wave tops. His muscles were soft from
+disuse,--but just let him reach those rocks, and rest awhile, and he
+would see if he could not find his way home!
+
+
+
+
+IV. FLAPPER THE FUR SEAL
+
+
+It was “sink or swim” for Finny-Foot,--and it was a long swim to the
+point of rock he had seen.
+
+He had almost given up, when the tide turned and carried him right
+toward it. But where was his mother, and the others he had left? Here
+was no sound of barking seals, though over on the yellow ribbon of
+beach sand the wee sandpipers ran up and down with the waves, just as
+they had at Monterey, and the gulls creaked and curveted overhead.
+
+“I want to go home!” wept Finny-Foot, in his voice like a human baby’s
+wail. But the only answer he received was the slap of the waves against
+his rock and the creak of gulls overhead.
+
+He caught a fish and ate it before he hid himself in a cranny of
+the rocks to take a nap. He awoke to an ocean deep blue under the
+California sun, and a cloudless sky that seemed to bend down to meet it
+everywhere except where the beach met the never-ending waves with its
+yellow sand dunes. He caught another fish, and took another nap, and
+when he awoke this time he felt much better.
+
+He was just wondering if he could find Seal Rocks if he were to swim
+along close to shore, when he spied the up-standing fins of a band of
+killer whales. They were far out at sea, but he remembered what had
+happened to the seal colony when the killers had pursued them, and for
+days afterward he dared not make the venture.
+
+Then one morning, when the sea was calm, he sighted a big rock shining
+black and wet, further down the coast, and swam for it. This rock was
+even better for basking in the sunshine and diving for passing fish.
+But it was not home, and Finny-Foot was even lonelier now than he had
+been with Pietro. Again and again he started swimming further South,
+where he seemed to feel that home ought to be. But always he saw
+sharks, and had to hide himself behind the nearest rock. Sometimes,
+too, after a long, tiring swim, he failed to find a good fishing ground
+and had to go hungry to sleep. Then he came to another town, where he
+was afraid to go too close to shore, and waited long days on a point of
+rock that looked far out to sea. There were always plenty of fish, but
+would he have to live all his life alone?
+
+One day he saw a sleek dark form swimming just off shore. Now
+Finny-Foot’s own family, like all harbor seals the world over, were
+gray spotted when full grown. But the newcomer was a rich dark brown
+and ever so much larger. Still, Finny knew he was a seal by the way he
+swam, and himself swam out to greet him.
+
+The visitor proved to be an Alaska fur seal, a young fellow who had
+migrated South with the other fur seals, but who had been wounded
+by a shark and had to go ashore till his wound was healed. He told
+Finny-Foot of that land of ice and snow where his own colony made its
+home. Finny-Foot decided that it must be the need of keeping warm so
+near the North Pole that gave him such wonderful fur, for he would need
+it there to keep him from freezing.
+
+There were millions of them where Flapper the Fur Seal came from. Every
+spring, he said, they started North, after a winter along the coast
+of Canada and as far South as Northern California. Often for days and
+weeks at a time they had to swim through a sea that was beaten into
+giant waves by the storm winds. Often rain and snow and sleet pommeled
+the sea all about them, and the sky hung low and gray with clouds,
+and they could hardly see for the gray fog that hung over everything.
+Sometimes they had to dodge between drifting ice-bergs that roared and
+cracked in the most terrific manner. Sometimes a storm would raise the
+waves so high that they were nearly drowned.
+
+But at last, just in time for the short Alaskan summer, they would
+reach the small, fog-hidden Pribilof Islands, where the mother seals,
+hundreds of them together, would raise their babies. The fish are so
+plentiful that the season is one long feast.
+
+The fur seal babies are a woolly black. And here the seal youngsters
+would play like puppies, racing and tumbling about together with their
+funny, awkward flappers, diving and swimming and leaping from the
+water, all in the merriest way imaginable.
+
+But even there the killer whales pursued them. Then, too, there were
+men who killed them for their fur, (Flapper said). There were great
+white polar bears who tried to catch them, and Eskimos and Indians,
+who kill them both for food and fur, so that a fur seal has to be
+continually on the alert.
+
+But all this danger and hardship had made Flapper unusually well able
+to take care of himself, and he thought that if Finny-Foot wanted to
+come along, they ought to be able to keep out of harm’s way until they
+found the little colony off Monterey. He himself, thought Flapper,
+ought now to wait until he saw some band of migrants returning to
+Alaska, and join them for the two thousand mile journey home.
+
+Finny-Foot invited him to join the colony at Monterey, but Flapper said
+the warm climate was beginning to make him feel itchy in his heavy
+furs, and if he did not find his people within a few days more, he was
+going to swim back North by himself, at least as far as Canada.
+
+One curious thing he told Finny-Foot. Instead of each family having
+just one mother, as harbor seals did, there in Alaska a family might
+have a hundred mothers all bringing up their children on the same rocky
+islet. But that was because of several reasons. First, so many things
+happened to the more adventurous father seals, who had to fight off
+intruders, that often there weren’t enough to go around. Then the bull
+seal is so large, (four or five times as large as his mates), that he
+can easily protect a whole colony of mothers and babies.
+
+Finny-Foot thought he would much prefer to have the kind of families
+his own colony believed in. But then, of course, everything is so
+different in Alaska, where it means a struggle just to keep alive, that
+he supposed it must be necessary.
+
+One day he and Flapper had been playing together, Flapper leaping high
+above the water in great, glistening curves that Finny-Foot could not
+begin to imitate, when Flapper gave a bark of amazement. There, on a
+cluster of rocks in a curving harbor, above which the gulls creaked
+and curveted as they watched for fish, he could see a number of gray
+objects moving awkwardly about or diving into the tide.
+
+“Look!” he urged Finny-Foot. “I’ll bet that’s your colony!” But the
+little seal could not see. “Come on, let’s find out!” Flapper urged,
+almost as glad as if it had been his own people that he had found. And
+sure enough, there on the very rock on which Finny-Foot had spent his
+babyhood, a snow white pup, he saw his gray spotted mother, all alone.
+
+Just at first she did not recognize him, for he had grown so large and
+had turned gray spotted like herself. When she did realize that it was
+her son, whom she had given up for gone, she barked so joyously that
+every member of the colony came crowding around them, barking their
+welcome to him.
+
+
+(THE END.)
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+
+ Aurora Borealis--Northern Lights.
+
+ Bidarka--Eskimo canoe.
+
+ Cache--A hiding-place for food supplies.
+
+ Fiord--A narrow inlet of the sea between steep cliffs.
+
+ Glacier--A river of slow-flowing ice.
+
+ “Husky”--Alaskan wolf-dog.
+
+ Ice Berg--A huge chunk of ice that has broken off a glacier and floats
+ in the sea.
+
+ Ice Floe--A smaller chunk of ice.
+
+ Ice Pan--The ice where the sea has frozen over.
+
+ Igloo--Eskimo house.
+
+ Lava--Molten rock from a volcano.
+
+ Samlet--A young salmon.
+
+ Tundra--Alaskan bog.
+
+ Volcano--A mountain that spouts fire and lava.
+
+ Zenith--The region of the North pole.
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
+
+  Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
+
+  Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78351 ***
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+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78351 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover">
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter1">
+<img src="images/fig1.jpg" alt="bear">
+<p class="caption">Along came a huge brown bear. &#160;—Page 32</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="bbox">
+
+<h1>
+<span class="big lsp">SITKA</span><br>
+<span class="up sp">THE SNOW BABY</span></h1>
+
+<p class="c sp">By Allen Chaffee</p>
+
+<p class="c more">Author of “Unexplored”, “Lost River”<br>
+The “Twinkly Eyes Books” “Fuzzy Wuzz” Etc.</p>
+
+<p class="c sp p4">Illustrated by<br>
+<span class="large">PETER DA RU</span></p>
+
+<hr class="r5">
+
+<p class="c sp xlarge">MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="c sp">Springfield, Massachusetts
+</p></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="c sp p4">
+Copyright, 1923<br>
+By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY<br>
+Springfield, Massachusetts<br>
+———<br>
+All Rights Reserved</p>
+
+<p class="c p4 xlarge">
+Bradley Quality Books</p>
+
+<p class="c sp more">
+Printed in United States of America
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="c p4">
+<i>To</i><br>
+<br>
+<span class="smcap large">Peter DaRu</span><br>
+<br>
+<i>who knows and loves the Alaskan wilderness</i>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="c xlarge">FOREWORD</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Here, in story form, is the natural history
+of Alaska, our last great American
+wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>In the adventures of the wee white polar
+bear, who drifts down the coast on a floating
+berg, the young reader has a chance to
+see Southern Alaska, with its two months
+of lush summer verdure, as well as the long
+frozen winter under the Northern lights,
+and the later summers far out in Bering
+Strait.</p>
+
+<p>With the enterprising bear cub, he can
+watch Eskimos and reindeer, seals and walruses,
+migratory sea birds and the salmon
+who swim the inland waterways to spawn.
+He will witness the birth of an ice-berg and
+adventure amid the storms and glaciers of
+the polar night.</p>
+
+<p>There is also the story of a seal baby, who
+became the pet of the fisherman’s little boy.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="c xlarge">CONTENTS</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="c sp">SITKA, THE SNOW BABY</p>
+
+<table class="large">
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="med">Chapter</span></td>
+  <td class="tdl"></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><span class="med">Page</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c1">I.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Little White Bear</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c2">II.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Unga, the Eskimo Boy</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">8</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c3">III.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Adrift on an Ice-Berg</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">15</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c4">IV.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Walrus Herd</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">22</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c5">V.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Summer in Alaska</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">29</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c6">VI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Blueberries and Mosquitoes</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">34</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c7">VII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Adventure</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">41</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c8">VIII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Wolves and Salmon</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">47</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c9">IX.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Birth of an Ice-Berg</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">56</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c10">X.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Monsters of the Sea</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">62</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c11">XI.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Tooth and Fang</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">68</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c12">XII.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl">“<span class="smcap">Let There Be Peace</span>”</td>
+  <td class="tdr">81</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdrp"></td>
+  <td class="tdc"><span class="less">FINNY-FOOT, THE SEAL</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"></td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c13">I.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Water Puppy</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">88</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c14">II.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Pietro’s Pet</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">95</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c15">III.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Trained Seals</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">101</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#c16">IV.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Flapper the Fur Seal</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr">108</td></tr>
+
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"></td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#c17"><span class="smcap">Glossary of Alaskan Words</span></a>&#160;&#160;&#160;</td>
+  <td class="tdr">116</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c1">CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">THE LITTLE WHITE BEAR</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">S</span>ITKA, the Snow Baby, opened his eyes
+on a world all blue-white ice-bergs and
+green-blue ocean under a sky that sparkled
+in the spring sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>He was as fat as butter and as fuzzy as
+a kitten, was Sitka, the little white bear.
+He looked for all the world like a big puppy,
+with his long white fur that was to keep
+him warm in this land of ice and snow. For
+his home was Alaska, that great Western
+frontier of the United States that reaches
+to the North Pole.</p>
+
+<p>Why was Sitka white, instead of black
+like his cousin Twinkly Eyes, of the deep,
+black-shadowed pine woods? One reason
+for his having white fur in that land of
+white was so that his enemies could not see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>
+him so plainly. For there were fierce white
+wolves that would have eaten him, had they
+found him, he was so little and soft and
+helpless. Of course his mother could protect
+him,—if there weren’t too many wolves,
+she was so big and fierce. Mother White
+Bear, like all the polar bear tribe, was at
+least twice as big as Mother Black Bear.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka had been born five weeks before in
+the cave in the ice-berg where his mother
+had slept the winter away. At first he had
+been naked and blind and helpless. Now his
+fur had grown and his eyes had opened, and
+he was ready to take a look at the world.</p>
+
+<p>My, how cold it was, even in spring, here
+in Alaska! His mother kept walking back
+and forth, back and forth, on the ice, because
+the minute she stopped her feet would
+have frozen fast, even though their soles
+were covered with fur. Sitka watched her
+for a few minutes, then he, too, began pacing
+back and forth, back and forth, without
+stopping.</p>
+
+<p>His mother had a longer neck than most
+bears, because it helped her to keep her nose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>
+above water when she swam. She was a
+great swimmer, for she lived on fish most
+of the time, and in her search for salmon
+and mackerel and shell-fish she often went
+far from shore, swimming from one ice-floe
+to the next through the open sea. The
+polar bear is often called the sea bear.</p>
+
+<p>Now this is what had become of Sitka’s
+father.—When the long, dark polar winter
+had set in and Sitka’s mother had curled
+herself up in the ice cave to hibernate, her
+mate had gone roaming over land and sea
+in search of good things to eat. He never
+slept the winter away as she did, and the
+cold gave him a ravenous appetite. Something
+must have happened to him during
+his wanderings, for he never came back.
+Perhaps an Eskimo killed him, to make his
+warm white fur into a rug for his igloo, as
+they call the little round snow houses these
+little brown people live in. Or perhaps he
+wanted a bear skin to make himself a parka,
+the hooded shirt they wear.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka’s mother had selected for her winter
+sleep a den on the ice-berg. This was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>
+when the sea froze over. When the spring
+sunshine began shining through the glassy
+walls of her retreat, and Sitka was strong
+enough to follow her, she burst her way
+through the icy door of her cave and led
+him forth, while she looked this way and
+that for something she could eat. The berg
+had broken away from the harbor ice, and
+floated this way and that through the open
+sea, as the wind blew it along. There wasn’t
+a thing she could eat on that ice cake, and
+she was starved after her winter’s fast.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the year she had to live on fish
+and clams, and the eggs of sea birds, because
+only in mid-summer were there berries
+and grasses. She loved salmon perhaps
+best of all. Once she found a good fishing
+ground, she could catch the great silver fish
+with her claws. But not one fish could she
+see in the water that broke in little waves
+against their floating island.</p>
+
+<p>Small sea-gulls were flying low above
+their heads. They were Arctic tern, and
+it made her mouth water to look at them.
+Leaping after one that flew low overhead,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>
+she made a grab at it with her paw, but
+failed to catch it. Wee Sitka also made a
+grab at them, but his fat legs slipped from
+under him, and over and over he rolled like
+a furry ball. The birds had been wintering
+in the South, and they had flown thousands
+of miles on their long wings to get back
+to Alaska. By and by, when the short Arctic
+summer came, it would be the most wonderful
+place in the world to raise their families
+and find the things they liked to eat. They
+had webbed feet, so that they could swim
+when their wings got tired, and their long
+bills were hooked at the tips to help them
+catch their slippery prey.</p>
+
+<p>Just now the circling birds wheeled at
+the call of their leader and went flapping
+Eastward toward the Alaskan shore. “That
+means they’ve seen something good,—perhaps
+a school of mackerel,” Sitka’s mother
+rumbled deep down in her throat. No wonder
+the Eskimos watch the tern for a sign
+of good luck, for the bright eyes of a flock
+of gulls are sure to see where the best fishing
+ground lies.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mother White Bear plunged into the icy
+water, bidding the snow baby follow her.
+Sitka dipped one fat paw into the icy tide,
+and squealed that he was afraid. “Come
+on,” she urged him. “Just catch hold of
+my tail and I’ll tow you along.” (For you
+know the polar bear has a wee stub of a
+tail.)</p>
+
+<p>“No-o-o-o!” he squealed, afraid. But wise
+Mother White Bear sank almost out of
+sight in the blue-green water. “Wa-i-t!”
+he wailed.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden she lifted her head high on
+its long neck, and sniffed the current of the
+wind. Sitka also sniffed, to find out what
+it was she smelled. Just then his feet slipped
+from under him, and off into the icy water
+slid the fat white cub. “Oosh! Huff—huff—huff!”
+he gasped, the plunge fairly taking
+his breath away. He felt sure that he
+was going under. Without once realizing
+that he was learning to swim, he struck out
+with all fours, just as if he were running,
+till he could make a grab for his mother’s
+tail. Then he clung to it with his teeth,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
+while she swam strongly to the next great,
+floating ice cake. There she scrambled over
+the edge, and Sitka with her, and stood
+shaking her wet fur and sniffing the wind.</p>
+
+<p>“I smell birds’ nests,” she explained. “But
+I get a message about something else, too.
+It must be an enemy;” for the fur was rising
+along the back of her neck, the way it
+does when danger threatens.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c2">CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">THE ESKIMO BOY</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE little white bear wondered why his
+mother wriggled her nose, with the
+fur rising so angrily on the back of her
+neck.</p>
+
+<p>It was only a boy,—Unga, an Eskimo lad,
+who, unlike Sitka, walked on his hind legs
+all the time. But Mother White Bear had
+been hunted so many times by these small
+brown people that her first instinct was to
+dive beneath the icy water and swim to
+safety. But with the wee, fat cub it would
+be hard to dive without drowning him. Of
+course, had she been alone, she could have
+handled the little Eskimo with one blow of
+her huge fore arm. But she knew he could
+throw a spear that might hurt Sitka. Then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>
+he would take the cub’s soft fur to make a
+fur coat. That had happened, once, to a
+polar cub. The thought made her growl
+ferociously, deep down in her throat.</p>
+
+<p>A moment more and the fur-clad little
+fellow came in sight. Fortunately for Sitka,
+he was alone. He had not brought one of
+the great, wolfish “husky” dogs that bears
+are so afraid of. His father was driving
+the dog-team to his sled that day.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka’s mother turned. The odor of the
+birds’ nests was very near now. Following
+that wonderful nose of hers straight across
+the ice, she swam another bit of open water,
+hoping to leave the boy behind her. Again
+she crossed an ice-floe, Sitka close behind,
+and again she swam an open lane of water.
+That way, they came to a rocky islet that
+was covered thick with eider ducks. The
+great, handsome birds had plucked the soft
+feathers,—the eider down—from their own
+breasts to line their rocky nests, and in
+these nests were hundreds and thousands
+of pale eggs. The whole rocky islet was
+covered with these nests.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Um!” sniffed Mother White Bear hungrily.
+“I think we have left that boy behind,
+and I am going to have eggs for supper.”
+With Sitka close at her heels, she
+shuffled along between the nests, taking
+here an egg and there an egg and crunching
+it in her great jaws. The meal put new
+strength into her; it would enable her to
+nurse her furry baby when she put him to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The ducks quacked and scolded, but there
+were so many eggs that there would be
+plenty left to hatch into ducklings.</p>
+
+<p>So busy had Mother White Bear been at
+her feast that she had almost forgotten
+about the Eskimo boy. Of a sudden she saw
+him paddling around the islet in his seal-skin
+boat. At the same instant he saw wee,
+fuzzy Sitka galloping along behind his
+mother, trying his best to keep up with her.
+The boy raised his spear to hurl it at the
+Snow Baby.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Sitka’s life was certainly
+in danger. But great, nine foot Mother
+White Bear, catching a whiff of the wind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>
+that blew straight to her wonderful nose
+from the dirty, greasy Eskimo lad, turned
+back just in time. Furiously she batted the
+spear with her powerful forearm as it came
+whistling through the air. In another instant
+it would have struck her baby. Growling
+awful threats, she rushed at Unga to
+drive him back.</p>
+
+<p>The little white bear, terrified by the battle
+that seemed about to be fought over his
+small person, turned tail and ran for all he
+was worth. From a point that jutted from
+the rocky islet he scrambled aboard a blue-white
+chunk of ice. The next thing he knew,
+the ice cracked with a sound like the roar of
+a cannon, and the floe he was on split off
+and began floating away. Sitka whimpered
+in fright as he watched the blue-green
+water rush in between him and the isle.</p>
+
+<p>But his mother saw him and came racing
+across the rocks, stepping, smash! all over
+the birds’ nests in her hurry. Swimming
+the strip of open water, she scrambled up
+beside him, and began nuzzling him all over
+to see if he was hurt. The Eskimo boy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
+would trouble them no more. They could
+see him paddling away in his skin canoe.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka was to have an even more exciting
+time later that spring. Awaking in his
+mother’s warm, furry arms to a morning of
+golden sunshine and blue sky, with gulls
+flying overhead crying “que-ok, que-ok,
+que-ok!” and the ice-bergs that rose like
+blue-white mountain peaks to seaward, he
+was startled by a rumbling like thunder.
+All about them it began sounding, for the
+ice cakes were breaking apart, floating this
+way and that and grinding against one
+another. But their own berg, so snug and
+safe with its cave in which they always
+slept, towered among the up-ending ice
+cakes as secure as a miniature mountain
+peak.</p>
+
+<p>Away off in the open water they could
+see little spouts of water. Sitka’s mother
+said it was whales “blowing.”</p>
+
+<p>“What are whales?” the cub demanded,
+round eyed with wonder.</p>
+
+<p>“Whales,” said his mother, “are great
+fish-like creatures, ever and ever and ever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
+so much bigger than the biggest polar bear
+that ever lived. But the queer thing is that
+they are not fish, really, though they spend
+their lives in the ocean, because they have
+fur instead of scales, and the mother whale
+nurses her baby just as a cat does her
+kitten.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oo! Aren’t you afraid of whales?”
+Sitka marvelled.</p>
+
+<p>“No. They have the tiniest mouths. But
+whale meat is delicious. These little brown
+men hunt them for their blubber, as they
+call the fat that lines their sides, and I’d
+love nothing better than to find a strip of
+blubber. Let’s go a little nearer.—Um! I
+smell blubber now. I do believe those Eskimos
+have been whale-hunting. If we could
+just find where they’ve been cutting blubber,
+what a feast it would be!”</p>
+
+<p>The Snow Baby was happy to go exploring.
+Climbing a steep, icy slope to the ridge
+of the next ice pan, they could see, away
+across the ice, which had frozen in ridges
+like the waves of the sea, a huge dark body
+that Mother White Bear’s nose said was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
+whale. But further out, a horde of the fur-clad
+little brown men were racing toward
+another whale in their seal-skin boats, with
+spears raised. Mother White Bear hesitated.
+She hated to take Sitka too near
+these Eskimos. But the odor of whale meat
+came tantalizingly to her nostrils, and she
+was dreadfully hungry. Cautiously she
+padded forward, and Sitka after her, ready
+at a moment’s notice to run for their lives.
+But they reached the meat in safety.</p>
+
+<p>She had just begun to eat ravenously
+when a sudden shout went up. One of the
+little brown men had seen her, and turned
+in pursuit.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c3">CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">ADRIFT ON AN ICE-BERG</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">N</span>O sooner had Mother White Bear seen
+the Eskimo turn to pursue her than she
+started running back over the ice floe, urging
+the fat cub to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka raced as best he could, but his fat
+forelegs were so much shorter than his hind
+legs that he stepped on his own feet and
+fell, and rolled this way and that. Again
+and again he fell, till Mother White Bear
+came back and tried to carry him by the
+scruff of the neck. But he was too heavy
+for that now. And all the time the little
+brown man was coming closer. At last the
+Eskimo raised his spear to hurl it at
+Sitka.</p>
+
+<p>Mother White Bear had just come to the
+top of a steep, slippery place on the ice-floe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
+where it sloped to the sea.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> In desperation,
+the great, furry mother took wee Sitka in
+her almost human forearms, and sitting
+down at the top of the slide, coasted straight
+down the ice-pan into the white-capped
+waves. By the time the Eskimo had climbed
+to the top of the slide, where he could see
+what had become of them, they were swimming
+rapidly away, the cub holding fast to
+his mother’s tail.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Note—A polar bear seen on the broken ice off
+Wrangel Island was seen to climb to the top of an uptilted
+ice-pan, lay down on his side, and pushing himself off with
+one hind foot, coast down head foremost to the water
+thirty of forty feet below, states E. W. Nelson in a publication
+of the National Geographic Society.</p>
+
+<p>Another time he saw a mother bear shelter her cub
+from flying bullets by taking him between her fore legs
+and swimming away with him.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Even then the little brown man could
+have thrown his spear and struck them, but
+Mother White Bear, suspicioning as much,
+made a dive under a floating cake of ice.
+They came up on the other side, where he
+could not see them, their noses just barely
+out of water,—and there they waited till
+long after the little brown man had given<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
+up and gone back to the whale hunt.</p>
+
+<p>There followed delightful days on Egg
+Island, as they called the rocks on which
+they had found the eider ducks. It rained
+a good deal, but they did not mind. The
+days were getting longer now. There were
+only a few hours of darkness between sunset
+and sunrise. The ice of inland rivers
+was thawed through in spots, where the
+Eskimos had chopped holes to catch salmon.
+Mother White Bear would sit all day at one
+of these salmon holes, watching for the big
+red fish. When she saw one, biff! would go
+her fore arm, claws out like five ivory fish
+hooks, to nab the slippery fellow. Then
+how she did feast! Sitka watched every
+move she made, because by and by he, too,
+wanted to be a mighty fisherman.</p>
+
+<p>One day she took him to visit Seal Rocks.
+From far away they could hear the dog-like
+barking of the queer creatures, as they lay
+basking in the noonday sun. Now and again
+one would come swimming along with a fish
+in his jaws, clambering up on the rocks with
+his flippers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p>
+
+<p>Long ago, when the world was young,
+Mother White Bear told Sitka, the seals
+all lived on land, and had legs, but they
+found it so much easier to get their food
+from the sea that they became expert swimmers.
+That meant that Mother Nature had
+to flatten their fore-legs into flippers, with
+webbed fingers, so that they could use them
+as paddles, as a fish does his fins. Their
+hind legs she turned into flappers that they
+could hold snug together and use, like a
+fish’s tail, to steer with. This makes it hard
+for them to get about on land, and Sitka
+thought it was the funniest sight in the
+world to see them humping themselves
+along over the rocks. But they were wonderful
+at swimming and diving and catching
+fish.</p>
+
+<p>Mother White Bear would not swim too
+near Seal Rocks today, however, because
+the great bull seals, the fathers and grandfathers,
+were there to protect the little ones.
+And my, how those old bulls did bark at
+them! For they feared that Mother White
+Bear might like the flavor of baby seal.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
+Nearly every cow-seal had a baby with soft,
+woolly white fur, though when it grew up
+it would be brown and tan. Mother White
+Bear would have liked to take Sitka a little
+nearer, but though the cow seals were not
+much bigger than big dogs, the bulls were
+almost as huge as herself. That, she told
+the inquiring cub, was because every bull
+had to protect at least a dozen cows and
+their babies. The young bulls are killed for
+their skins, and that makes the numbers
+uneven.</p>
+
+<p>The seals had all been South for the winter.
+In May the bull seals had returned to
+the islands, swimming through the icy
+water so fast that the cows could not keep
+up with them. For several weeks the bulls
+had held contests, and fought among themselves
+to see who was strongest, and who
+should have the best home sites on the
+islands. In June their mates had come,
+and almost the same day, the seal pups had
+been born. It is still cold in Alaska in early
+summer, but the seals have such thick fur—these
+Alaska seals—that they do not mind.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>
+Of course the best deep sea fishing cannot
+be found so near shore, and the mother
+seals often had to swim for miles to find
+food. Then they would come back and nurse
+their babies. By fall the little ones would
+be able to fish for themselves, and they
+would all go South for the winter.</p>
+
+<p>The two bears next swam past some rocks
+where they saw a herd of huge fat walruses.
+These leather-skinned old fellows, who
+looked as if they might be second cousins to
+the seals, had great tusks that curved from
+their jaws to the very ground. Sitka was
+terribly afraid when he saw those ivory
+tusks. But his mother only laughed and
+bade him watch and see what they did with
+their ferocious-looking weapons. Then she
+led him over the rocks, past the lazy, lubberly
+creatures, who eyed them stupidly, to
+where one old fellow was busy just off
+shore. To Sitka’s immense surprise, the
+monster was digging clams with his tusks.
+He had quite a pile of them waiting for his
+supper.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka watched with twinkling eyes till<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>
+the old fellow’s back was turned. Then he
+made a dash to see what those clams were
+like. My, how that walrus roared at him!
+He made for him with his tusks, but Sitka
+dodged to one side too quickly for his
+clumsy lunge.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c4">CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">THE WALRUS HERD</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>N a bare, flat island of the ice pack
+sprawled a herd of walruses. Sitka
+stared!</p>
+
+<p>They were the fattest, ugliest, fiercest
+looking monsters the little white bear had
+ever seen. They were not as fierce as they
+looked, however, as Mother White Bear
+knew, for they lived on clams and shell-fish.
+Their fierce appearance came partly from
+the long ivory tusks with which they dug
+their clams.</p>
+
+<p>They were enormous creatures, some of
+the old bulls weighing fully two thousand
+pounds. Like seals, their legs consisted of
+flappers. But there the resemblance ended.
+Instead of silky fur, they had ugly, hairless,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
+warty-looking hides, tough and wrinkled
+and of a muddy brown.</p>
+
+<p>Neither have they the brains of the seal
+tribe: for they had found the life of the
+clam digger so easy that they had no need
+of brains, and Nature takes back what we
+do not use. Their thick necks ended in heads
+so shallow that there seemed to be nothing
+there but a pair of tiny eyes and the whiskers
+at the roots of their tusks.</p>
+
+<p>On land these ungainly monsters were
+almost helpless in their fatness,—instead of
+being agile like seals. But in the sea they
+were marvelous swimmers, their layers of
+fat blubber helping there to float them.</p>
+
+<p>However, like all mammals, they will
+fight fiercely when their babies are in
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>As Sitka and his mother approached the
+ice where lay a herd of mother walruses
+and their young, the mothers eyed them angrily,
+and the moment they scrambled
+aboard the floe, several of them charged
+with the utmost ferocity, bellowing and
+rearing themselves high on their hind quarters<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
+as if to fling themselves on the intruders
+and crush them flat, as, indeed, they
+might have done, had not Mother White
+Bear given Sitka the signal to dive off into
+the water again. Dearly would she have
+loved to treat him to walrus calf, but it was
+plain they would have to try strategy in
+capturing such prey.</p>
+
+<p>For a time they swam around, not too
+close to the mother walruses. The fathers
+were digging clams, heaping great piles of
+them on shore, then settling to their feast,
+or sometimes eating as they dug. Sitka
+eyed these clam piles with envy and a little
+mischief. “Mother, I’m going to try it
+again!” he announced. And before she
+could utter a warning, he had made a dash
+for the breakfast a huge old bull was looking
+forward to, as he dug away in the shallow
+water.</p>
+
+<p>With a bellow of wrath the old fellow
+reared his monstrous head and eyed the
+white cub with a gleam of anger. “Come
+back!” whoofed Mother White Bear. But
+Sitka did not hear. The next moment the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>
+ivory tusks would have come down straight
+into the middle of Sitka’s back, but that he
+dodged, and slid into the water with no
+more than a red gash on his white side.</p>
+
+<p>“Just wait till I’m a little bigger!” he
+roared at the walrus. “You just wait!”</p>
+
+<p>It was therefore with huge interest that
+he watched his mother, towards dusk that
+afternoon, prepare to creep up on a walrus
+calf. Bidding Sitka remain in hiding behind
+a chunk of ice, she flattened herself like a
+cat creeping up on a bird, and waited till
+it should be wholly dark. She had fixed on
+a calf who, with his mother, lay a little to
+one side of the main body of the herd, and
+in order to take them by surprise, she and
+Sitka had made their approach by swimming
+first out to sea, then doubling back
+and approaching with nothing showing
+above water-line save the black tips of their
+noses.</p>
+
+<p>In that interval just between sundown
+and the first stars, when it was darkest, she
+began creeping slowly forward. Once her
+foot scraped the ice, and the walrus cow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>
+looked up suspiciously, and Mother White
+Bear held as still as a rock till the cow had
+gone to sleep again. Then forward she
+crept, nearer, nearer, nearer, nearer! Sitka
+could no longer see her white bulk for
+the darkness, nor could he hear aught but
+the wind and the waves.</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden dash she had broken the
+calf’s neck with a blow and was dragging
+his huge weight back over the ice. The
+walrus cow was roused now and rearing
+this way and that, trying to overtake them.
+But so awkward are walruses on land that
+she could make no headway compared with
+agile Mother White Bear; and though her
+bellowing awoke the herd and they raised
+the most terrific alarm, they were still farther
+away than she. In the inky darkness
+they only tumbled over one another in their
+awkwardness, searching in vain for the
+cause of the disturbance. Had Mother
+White Bear met them in the water, it would
+have been a different story. But she did
+not take to the water till she had reached
+the place where she had left Sitka. Then,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>
+softly, softly, they slipped over the edge of
+the ice and began towing the fat body of
+the calf to shore. It meant feasting for
+many days.</p>
+
+<p class="gtb">*****</p>
+
+<p>It was only a week later that they
+watched, themselves safely hidden, their
+black noses just barely out of water, while
+a band of Eskimos went walrus hunting,
+and Sitka marveled to see what cowards
+walruses could be. As the little brown men
+approached in their kyacks (fearless in
+these frail skin boats), the whole herd
+simply rushed terrified into the water and
+swam for their lives. Even then it was
+simple enough for the hunters to make a
+kill with their bone-pointed spears. Had
+the walruses not been such cowards, it
+would have been the easiest thing in the
+world for them to have reared their tusked
+heads out of the water and crushed the
+boats.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c5">CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">SUMMER IN ALASKA</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE ice-berg on which Sitka and his
+mother had their den was drifting further
+and further South.</p>
+
+<p>It was but one of many bergs, and a small
+one, at that. Huge, mountainous looking
+islets of the blue-white ice swam all about
+them, sometimes bumping against one
+another with a roar. Sea birds screamed
+above their heads, and the sun glinted from
+the water merrily, on days when it did not
+rain. Sitka felt that they were bound on
+a great adventure.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the wee white bear watched
+the waves that broke in white foam against
+the floating bergs, and nowhere could he
+see anything but sea and sky. Again they
+floated close to shore, where steep granite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>
+cliffs jutted in long arms between the fiords,—the
+narrow inlets the ice had cut. In
+places, the cliffs were red with the cooled
+lava that had come pouring hot from some
+ancient volcano; and Mother White Bear
+would tell Sitka how, when the world was
+young, the mountain peaks that lined the
+shore had flamed and smoked and rumbled,
+and sent forth a fountain of fire and ashes.
+For that was the way new mountains were
+made. At such times Sitka’s eyes would
+grow round with wonder.</p>
+
+<p>“Will it happen again?” he asked uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>“Sometimes it happens even now,” his
+mother told him. “But it is nothing to be
+afraid of. We won’t go near.”</p>
+
+<p>“But where does the fire come from?”
+he would ask.</p>
+
+<p>“From away inside the earth. You know
+it was once all hot millions of years ago,
+but it has cooled until we have ice and
+snow.”</p>
+
+<p>Their little berg soon began floating down
+a shore covered by green forest, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>
+crept to the very water’s edge. Birds sang
+in the tree tops, and lovely waterfalls
+poured over the pink limestone cliffs. It
+was like paradise. Tall ferns and brilliant
+flowers embroidered the brook banks.
+Mother White Bear sniffed. She could
+smell ripening berries. It would be worth
+while to swim ashore and have a little
+change from fish. Sitka was the happiest
+little bear in all Alaska.</p>
+
+<p>That day they feasted on clams and mussels
+and other shell-fish that they found
+among the rocks. They had juicy meadow
+grasses, too, and lilies with roots like onions.
+The days were growing longer and
+longer, till there were just a few hours of
+darkness, and all the rest was day. For
+it was the land of the midnight sun. “In
+winter Sitka’s mother reminded him, it
+was dark almost all day, where they came
+from,—so near the North Pole.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes Mother White Bear would
+lead the way along the beach till they came
+to the river. It began just behind the falls
+that shot over the cliff in rainbow-tinted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
+spray. Along that river was a bear-path
+beaten hard into the soft soil by the feet
+of hundreds of other bears black and
+brown and gray, who fished every year
+along the bank. There the two explorers
+would catch salmon and leaping trout, and
+sometimes they found great piles of fish
+that had been washed ashore by the spring
+floods. These expeditions were a bit of a
+risk for a polar bear, and Sitka’s mother
+was conscious that their white coats no
+longer blended with the background of
+white ice that Mother Nature intended
+them to live on. Still, they could always
+return to their cave on the berg to sleep.
+It floated so slowly that they could ramble
+all day on shore, and still swim back to it
+when night came. For Mother White Bear
+could swim as fast as a motor boat when
+she wanted to.</p>
+
+<p>One thing she always avoided, and that
+was the settlements where Indians, and
+sometimes white men, lived. When they
+passed a town, she would “lay low.” For it
+was not of other animals she was afraid,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>
+so long as she was with Sitka to protect
+him, but of the red men.</p>
+
+<p>She was, however, careful to keep out of
+the way of the huge brown bears that lived
+along the shore. One day they had smelled
+ripe blueberries, and she had led Sitka cautiously
+ashore for a taste of the fruit. It
+was boggy where they grew. The heavy
+rains had left the ground soaked with moisture,
+and they had to keep to the firm
+ground around the edge. Even then, sometimes,
+the cub would slip on a soft bit of
+moss and sink to his armpits in the oozy
+swamp or tundra, before his mother could
+yank him out by the scruff of his neck.</p>
+
+<p>Here they felt the first mosquitoes Sitka
+had ever known. But they couldn’t do much
+damage, through his thick fur, except
+around his face. By and by, along came a
+huge brown bear, a kadiak bear, larger
+than Mother White Bear. Sitka’s mother
+promptly hid him in a thick clump of alders,
+but the kadiak never even looked in their
+direction. He was following his nose to the
+blueberry bog.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now they had noticed how thick the mosquitoes
+were, out over the bog. There were
+black clouds of them. Mosquitoes are worse
+in the short Alaska summer than anywhere
+else in the whole United States, because the
+ground is so wet and the sun so hot. The
+big brown bears and the little black bears
+that live in Southern Alaska always go to
+the mountains for the summer to get away
+from the mosquitoes, because on the cool,
+windy mountainsides the maddening insects
+cannot live. But it is a great temptation
+to come down sometimes and go blueberrying,
+where the berries are thickest.</p>
+
+<p>This old brown bear, Sitka’s mother whispered
+to him, as they stood hiding in the
+alder thicket, was very likely on his way
+to the mountains for the two hot months.
+But first he was going to cross the bog.
+“And the mosquitoes will eat him alive.”</p>
+
+<p>Sitka wondered how such tiny insects
+could harm such a great, shaggy brute as
+the kadiak bear.</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose we watch and find out,” his
+mother suggested.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c6">CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">BLUEBERRIES AND MOSQUITOES</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">Y</span>ES, sir, those mosquitoes will almost
+eat him alive!” Sitka’s mother assured
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka, wondering greatly, watched, as the
+huge old kadiak bear lumbered across the
+bog. Sure enough, the mosquitoes followed
+him in swarms. A black cloud of them hung
+over him, singing their horrid song. They
+settled black on his fur, but that did him no
+harm. They could not reach through to his
+hide. But there was, of course, no fur to
+protect his eyes and nostrils, and the insects
+began settling on his eyelids and on the tip
+of his nose till he had to paw them off angrily.
+And my, how they could sting! Every
+time they poked their beaks into him for
+a drop of blood, they left a tiny drop of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
+poison in the wound, and made it burn and
+swell. By and by the poor old fellow’s eyelids
+were so swollen that he could not open
+his eyes to see where he was going. He
+just wandered around and around in the
+bog, till he thought he never would find his
+way out again. He had come that way for
+the berries, but his lips and tongue were
+now so swollen from the mosquito bites that
+he could not even enjoy the fruit.</p>
+
+<p>But at last he happened to wander near
+the edge of the bog. Then he heard the
+sound of roaring water, where a river came
+rushing down the mountainside to the sea.
+Making blindly for the sound, he plunged
+into an icy pool, where he could cool his
+fevered face. And there he stayed, just
+the tip of his nose above water so he could
+breathe, until the swelling had gone down
+and he could see to go on up into the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>“Once upon a time,” Sitka’s mother told
+him, “a big brown bear tried to cross the
+swamp, and the mosquitoes bit him till he
+couldn’t see, and he just wandered around<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>
+and around in that swamp till he starved
+to death. And all the time, the mosquitoes
+kept pricking him for the tiny drop of his
+blood that each one got. That is what I
+meant when I said they could fairly eat one
+alive,—tiny as they are, when there are so
+many of them.”</p>
+
+<p>Sitka looked back wonderingly at the
+kadiak bear that had had such a narrow
+escape. He was shuffling rapidly up the
+mountainside.</p>
+
+<p>The next time the polar cub and his
+mother went exploring, they saw a band of
+Indians camping on the river bank. The
+women and children, dressed in bright hued
+calicoes, were fishing and gathering berries,
+and cooking fish over little fires. Now fire
+was something that Sitka had never seen
+before, and it looked so pretty that he
+wanted to feel of one. But Mother White
+Bear was terribly afraid of fire, because it
+was something she did not understand, and
+she kept him in hiding among the tall ferns.
+It was dangerous enough, she said, for a
+white bear to go into the woods at all, when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>
+the red men were about.</p>
+
+<p>By and by they saw a band of Indian
+men start up the mountainside. When they
+had passed out of sight, Sitka’s mother began
+leading him up another way. Far ahead,
+they could see the peaks and hollows filled
+with snow, and she thought it would feel
+good to roll in the snow again. Their fur
+was much too warm for this kind of weather.
+Besides, she smelled wild mushrooms,
+and she meant to have a feast. In the snow
+they could hide perfectly, should the red
+men come near.</p>
+
+<p>There were choice berries and other good
+things along the way to eat. They started
+following the river, where the rainbow
+trout leapt out of the water every now and
+again. They padded along as soundlessly
+as possible on their furry feet. The clouds
+were gathering about the peaks, throwing
+cool shadows over the woods. It would
+probably rain by and by, but they didn’t
+mind in the least. They really enjoyed being
+out in the rain.</p>
+
+<p>At first their way lay along the bear path<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
+where the earth had been beaten hard along
+the river bank. On one side, the icy water
+swirled over rocks and fallen logs, or slid
+in smooth sheets over the gold-specked
+sands. For this was a land where much
+gold was found. On the other side of the
+path, rank meadow grass grew high on the
+moist soil, and even Sitka’s mother could
+not see above its waving tops. The cub
+slipped into the soft black mud, till no one
+would have believed, when his mother fished
+him out, that he had ever been a little white
+bear.</p>
+
+<p>In this tall grass they could hear queer
+rustlings,—little squeals and scufflings, and
+Sitka wondered what could be going on in
+there. By and by the grass was not so tall.
+It was only about as high as Mother White
+Bear. They were on a steep slope now,
+where the trees had all been burned to
+blackened stumps, and the bunch grass
+grew. Suddenly a sound of many hooves
+thudded along the ground, and Mother
+White Bear drew Sitka into hiding between
+two granite boulders. A few minutes later,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>
+a herd of reindeer went leaping and bounding
+over the grass and up the mountainside.
+These Alaskan caribou can stand weather
+60 degrees below zero. But in summer they
+enjoy three months of feasting on the bunch
+grass.</p>
+
+<p>At last the two bears reached a ridge
+where they could see ever and ever so far.
+They could look back along the way they
+had come, across the level stretch of grass
+and down the river glinting in the sun. They
+could even see where the ocean beat against
+the cliffs in white foam, and beyond, where
+the white bergs drifted. Up here the wind
+was cold, and snow lay in the shady places.</p>
+
+<p>Then that same band of reindeer went
+leaping across the side of the mountain opposite,
+and on up the steep slopes. After
+them came racing the Indians, trying to
+head them off and capture them. They
+use reindeer for both horses and cows,—driving
+them, milking them, and using their
+hide to make their clothing, boats and
+houses. That is, they do, when they capture
+them. They had all passed out of sight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>
+in a twinkling and Sitka never knew
+whether they caught them or not. He hoped
+the beautiful brown animals had escaped.</p>
+
+<p>But that night he found he had troubles
+of his own.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c7">CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">AN ADVENTURE</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap1">I</span> DO hope our ice-berg doesn’t drift too
+far away!” said Mother White Bear.
+“We’d spend another day on the mountain,
+if I thought it was safe to.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s stay,” begged Sitka.</p>
+
+<p>The way now grew steeper, and the river
+grew narrower and swifter, until the bunch
+grass gave way to tall ferns and the
+ground was soft with pretty colored mosses.
+In winter the reindeer paw the snow
+away with their feet and eat these mosses.
+Next came pale green willows and dark
+green spruce and cedar trees. The Snow
+Baby, sniffing their piny fragrance, rolled
+delightedly on the soft ground beneath
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Later the slopes were all wet moss, into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
+which the wee fellow sank so deep that his
+mother tried to lead him along the fallen
+tree trunks. But they too were slippery
+with moss, and every now and again he
+would slide off and have to be rescued. But
+then, there were the finest, big, juicy berries!
+Blue-berries, thimble-berries, fat ripe
+huckleberries, tart cranberries, and mild,
+sweet service-berries. It was a paradise for
+bears!</p>
+
+<p>There were mushrooms, too, growing
+around the hollow logs, and Mother White
+Bear knew just which it was safe to eat,
+and which were poisonous. My, how she
+did love mushrooms!</p>
+
+<p>“Mother,” Sitka begged, “let’s stay here
+all the time.”</p>
+
+<p>But she explained that the summer is
+very short, just July and August, here in
+this part of the world, and soon would come
+ice and snow again, and they would have
+to go back to sea, where they could fish.
+Besides, she preferred the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka found it hard to imagine it ever
+being cold there, where the sun shone so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
+hot! But by September, she told him, would
+come the long rains, and the days would
+grow shorter and shorter, till in mid-winter
+it was terrifically cold on these
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Returning the way they had come, they
+found the Indians still singing and laughing
+about their little cook-fires. Along the river
+bank stood their baskets heaped with red
+and purple berries, and Sitka grabbed a
+pawful every chance he got. But Mother
+White Bear led him away around the Indian
+camp, as softly as she could walk, for
+“Safety First” was her motto where the red
+men were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka was exhausted now, and they were
+eager to get back to their cave in the ice-berg.
+But the little berg, which Mother
+White Bear recognized by its shape, was
+away off behind two smaller bergs. Her
+first thought was to swim clear around
+them, but the cub was by now so tired and
+sleepy that he began whimpering and begging
+her to carry him. How she longed to
+get back to the safety of their cave, where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>
+he could sleep away the strange, sunlit
+night.</p>
+
+<p>As the bergs were drifting in the blue
+summer sea, there was a narrow lane of
+water they might swim between the two
+new bergs, to reach their home. Well, she
+decided, she would chance it. She was a
+powerful swimmer, and Sitka could cling to
+her tail. If only those huge chunks of ice
+would stop drifting about so!</p>
+
+<p>She had swum perhaps half this narrow
+channel when she suddenly became
+aware that the walls of ice that towered
+on either side were closer than when
+she had started. The two bergs were
+floating together, and the spray that
+dashed against their sides began to fill
+her eyes with mist, and her ears with
+the sound of the surf. Sitka, paddling
+wearily along behind her, with her stub of
+a tail in his mouth, began to squeal that he
+was being drowned, for the waves were
+chopping right over his head.</p>
+
+<p>Mother White Bear redoubled her efforts,
+knowing that if they did not get through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>
+the channel quickly, they would surely be
+crushed between those two walls of ice.
+Anxiously she measured the distance that
+lay ahead, then with a backward glance she
+made a hasty estimate of the distance that
+lay behind them. Yes, they must be just
+about half way through the channel.</p>
+
+<p>But ahead the space was narrowed till it
+seemed as if the icy walls must clash together
+before they could pass them. And
+the tide was all against her. Swim as she
+might, she could not seem to swim fast
+enough. How she wished now that she had
+taken the long, safe way around. But it
+was too late.</p>
+
+<p>But was it?—If only she were headed the
+other way, the tide would help instead of
+hinder her. She glanced behind once more.
+To her surprise, the way was widening, instead
+of narrowing, behind them. In fact,
+the icy walls were drifting together in a V,
+and they were headed toward the point of
+the V.</p>
+
+<p>Quick as thought, she turned, and began
+towing the tired Sitka back the way they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>
+had come. Then the ice ahead came together
+with a grinding roar, and the wave chop
+nearly strangled them. But she swam on,
+and the wee cub behind her, till they were
+out in open water. One last mighty effort
+and they were safe! An instant later the
+icy walls clashed again, grinding together
+until the channel was entirely closed. But
+they were safe!</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c8">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">WOLVES AND SALMON</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>HEN Mother White Bear saw that
+they could not get back to their own
+berg, she towed Sitka around the neighboring
+bergs to see if they could not find a new
+home among them. They were of course
+tiny bergs,—hardly deserving the name,
+but still affording them cool and comfortable
+shelter through the long daylight
+nights. But all were too steep to climb.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing for it, then, but to
+return to shore. As she swam back through
+the icy water, so pleasant after their hot
+day, she wondered where they could hide
+themselves in the strange brilliance of the
+Alaskan summer night. Nowhere along
+shore, certainly, with those Indians encamped
+so near, and the excursion steamers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>
+of the white men passing every now and
+again.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed nothing for it but to return
+to the snow fields of the high mountains.
+So long as the summer lasted, there was
+food in plenty. Later the salmon streams
+would freeze, and they would have to seek
+their fish from the sea. But if they headed
+generally Northward in their wanderings,
+along the snow-capped range, they would
+soon be back in a land better suited to their
+heavy furs. Polar bears are, like all bears,
+great wanderers. It was the first time in
+her life that Mother White Bear had ever
+visited land in summer; but once in early
+winter she had ranged Southward over the
+pack ice, in which she had denned for her
+winter sleep. The breaking up of the pack
+in spring had left her to summer on an
+island with Sitka’s older brother, then a
+wee cub, though they had finally made their
+way back home by swimming many miles
+through the open sea.</p>
+
+<p>Tonight as Sitka and his mother neared
+shore again, they were startled to hear the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>
+baying of wolves. They hid behind an up-jutting
+boulder just off shore, and waited
+to see what was going to happen. Through
+the meadows that here lay between woods
+and shore came a herd of deer, and from
+their enormous leaps and bounds Mother
+White Bear decided that it must be a matter
+of life and death.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them the tall grass, man-high,
+moved here and there as if blown by a wind,
+but it must be something else that moved it.
+Then out on the rocky shore came the terror-stricken
+deer, and close at their heels,
+there emerged from the concealing grasses
+three great fierce white wolves. The deer
+were all but exhausted now, for they stumbled
+as they leapt. They must have come a
+great distance,—perhaps from the mountain-sides
+where they browsed in summer.
+But the wolves had gained on them and the
+race was nearly done.</p>
+
+<p>Then the leader of the herd, raising his
+great antlers, leaped into the water. After
+him plunged the others, and away they
+swam, straight toward the rim of a green<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
+island that lay off-shore. The wolves
+stopped at the water’s edge, for they are
+not good swimmers, baying their disappointment
+till the fearful sound echoed and
+re-echoed from the tossing bergs.</p>
+
+<p>But were the three wolves to go hungry?
+Sitka watched with frightened eyes as the
+trio seated themselves in a row and howled
+their disappointment to the curtain of light
+that now began to glow in the North. There
+was nothing else to do but to watch the
+wolves and the Aurora, for Mother White
+Bear would not venture ashore till they
+had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Never would Sitka forget the shimmering
+silver folds of the curtain that hung
+from the Auroral arch, the star-strewn sky,
+and the midnight sun circling the horizon,
+glinting pink from the blue-white bergs
+that tossed in the purple sea. The grinding
+of berg on berg, the smell of sea-weed and
+the weird howling of the wolves, the slap-slap
+of the waves, comfortingly cold
+against the furry sides of the wanderers
+from the North, and the gurgling of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>glacial salmon stream, all these things went
+to make up the scene. Then the silver curtain
+ceased to shimmer, and nothing remained
+but the long flames of white fire
+that sprang from the zenith.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/fig2.jpg" alt="wolves">
+<p class="caption">The wolves stopped at the water’s edge.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As suddenly as they had appeared, the
+three wolves were gone, doubtless to chase
+rabbits for their breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Mother White Bear now led the way back
+along the same river they had explored before.
+Sitka was tired and sleepy, but she
+would not stop for him to rest till she had
+him back so high on the mountainside that
+they could burrow into a snow bank. “Now
+we are safe,” she told him “and we can take
+it leisurely.” Sitka drifted into dreams of
+catching mammoth salmon.</p>
+
+<p>Now Unga’s tribe were of the Eskimos
+who hunt on the inland ice. Probably, no
+one knew how long ago, their people had
+come over the ice from Greenland, skirting
+the Arctic Ocean. Those there had been
+among them, the tale had been handed
+down to them, who, wandering Southward,
+had seen some of the Aleutian Islands born,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>
+spewed up as molten rock from volcanic
+depths. Within the memory of Unga’s
+father two of these islands had shot fire
+into the sky and covered all the sea with
+ashes. Strange sights had been seen in that
+strange land,—and might be seen again.
+For geography was still in the making.</p>
+
+<p>It was also rumored that tribesmen who
+had ventured far in their bidarkas, venturing
+from one island to another, had found
+them leading in a chain straight across to
+Siberia, dividing Bering Sea from the Pacific.
+All this had been repeated around the
+fire of the council house.</p>
+
+<p>Had Sitka and Mother White Bear but
+known it, they had drifted to one of the
+three great sounds of the West Coast, Bristol
+Bay, in the language of the white man.
+From this a chain of mountains reached
+North-East to a branch of the Yukon, which
+mighty river they later followed to the sea
+as it skirted another mountain range. For
+from the Bay, where the air was warmed
+and moistened by a branch of the current
+that crosses the ocean from Japan, they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>
+traversed many a hundred miles of mountainside
+before they reached that river
+whose red salmon tempted them to follow
+its length.</p>
+
+<p>That river, cut deep by the rush of the
+spring ice, ran Westward across that
+mighty land to empty into Bering Sea, there
+to spread fan-wise amid a thousand wooded
+islands into Norton Sound.</p>
+
+<p>But before Sitka and his mother had
+traversed its length, they had skirted the
+sheer cliffs of foaming gorges, and fought
+mosquitoes along miles of lake-dotted tundra.
+Their award was that they could often
+creep up on sleeping ducks or plover, who
+slept in countless thousands on these lakes
+as their clans gathered for the great migration
+Southward for the winter. The two
+bears were overjoyed when at last, after
+weeks of untiring travel, they could see the
+waves breaking in white mist against the
+spruce-dark shore. The iron mountains behind
+them shone rose-colored. They had
+feasted fat on the red and silver salmon,
+and the grayling and whitefish of the teeming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>
+river, and now at last the only barrier
+between them and the open sea was a series
+of sand-bars and whirlpools and an excursion
+steamer, all to be avoided with equal
+care. But that is getting ahead of our
+story.</p>
+
+<p>The river which cascaded from high up
+the mountain-side was agleam with the
+shining bodies of samlets, young silver
+salmon with red spots and black markings
+on their sides. Such luscious fish the little
+white bear had never tasted as those they
+waded into the stream to catch.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring the parent salmon,—huge,
+silvery fish with black spots on their sides,—had
+left the sea, with its teeming food
+supply, to swim up-stream to the spawning
+beds. The gold seekers of ’98 had often
+watched as the agile fish swam through the
+rushing torrents, leaping up the waterfalls
+as easily and gracefully as a kitten leaps
+to the top of a hedge. High in the mountains,
+where the stream runs shallow, they
+had laid their eggs and left their young to
+hatch. And now the stream was fairly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>
+alive with these samlets, some of them only
+a few months old, some as much as two
+years. The spring of their third year they
+would be large enough to go down to the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>Mother White Bear showed Sitka a salmon
+laying her eggs. First the great four-foot
+fish lay down in the gravel of the shallows
+and rounded out a nest with her side.
+There she left hundreds and hundreds of
+tough, elastic shelled eggs, hardly half the
+size of peas. Before they left the eggs to
+their fate, the parent fish would cover them
+over with gravel so that the water could
+not wash them away. Out of so many,
+many eggs, surely enough would hatch and
+survive to fill the river with samlets.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c9">CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">THE BIRTH OF AN ICE-BERG</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">L</span>IKE all explorers, Sitka and his mother
+knew not what unexpected dangers
+might lie in their pathway, as they turned
+their noses Northward. But like all explorers,
+they thrilled at thought of the new
+scenes they might enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>Their way lay first along the crest of the
+range,—the Northern extension of that
+great mountain system which in California
+is called the Sierra Nevada and in Oregon
+and Washington the Cascades and the Selkirks.
+The same great upheavals of the
+earth’s crust, the same glaciers and volcanoes,
+helped to build them all.</p>
+
+<p>In the tonic coolness of the high peaks,
+Sitka raced and rolled like a puppy, plunging
+whoofing, into the soft snow, or coasting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>
+when the crust was hard. For a little
+while this land of sternness, hardship and
+hunger, smiled in the sunshine, and life was
+not so serious as it had been, and would be
+again. With the abundance of food and exercise,
+Sitka was growing fast. His muscles
+were as hard as iron. He could go for miles
+over the mountain-sides without tiring. At
+the same time his mother was teaching him
+a million things a polar bear should know
+about the world in which soon he would
+have to make his living and defend himself
+against the elements.</p>
+
+<p>They watched an Arctic fox to see how
+he caught the ptarmigan, those brown
+and white grouse which are so abundant
+on the lower passes. These wild hens of
+the Arctic, nesting in the snow banks,
+and gradually changing their brown summer
+costumes for the white of winter,
+were not so well hidden as they would
+be later, when their camouflage would
+be complete. But try as he might, fat,
+clumsy Sitka could never creep up on them
+as did the sly white Reynard. He could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>
+swim after his salmon as the fox could not,
+but his mouth watered in vain for the ptarmigan.</p>
+
+<p>They gobbled down luscious fungi, those
+fan-shaped mushrooms that grow on birch
+trees, and they browsed like cattle on the
+juicy grass that had sprung up in the paths
+of snow-slides. All that was delightful. But
+the cub shivered at the weird, laughing cry
+of the great Northern loon that haunted the
+glacial lakes.</p>
+
+<p>He was fascinated, though, by the whistlers,
+(Arctic woodchucks), who disappeared
+into their holes at his approach, peeking out
+at him, then disappearing, peeking and disappearing,
+till Sitka was frantic with the
+longing to catch one of them. But try as
+he might, he was never quick enough for
+those little fellows. Their shrill, whistling
+calls tantalized him on every side.</p>
+
+<p>They saw moose and mountain goats, porcupines
+who gnawed the spruce trees without
+even bothering to look up at them, and
+ermine who swam after their fish, twisting
+and turning as lithe as eels. They crossed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>
+glaciers, leaping the crevices and coasting
+down the slopes of these almost motionless
+rivers of ice. On and on they wandered,
+through the shortening days, now cooled by
+gray clouds which brought flurries of soft
+snow to the higher slopes. By September
+they had gales of wind, with sleet and hailstones,
+and the clouds were constantly
+forming on the mountain-tops and sinking
+lower and lower, till all the tundra between
+the mountains and the sea lay hidden by
+gray fog. But Sitka loved the coldness of
+it, dressed as he was in his thick white
+furs, and he was the happiest little bear in
+all Alaska when at last Mother White Bear
+told him they were now far enough North
+to return to the sea in safety.</p>
+
+<p>How many hundreds of miles they had
+traveled they had no means of knowing, but
+bears are tireless travelers, and polar bears
+are the most tireless of all. The hardest
+was when they began following the rim of
+one of the narrow ice-carved canyons, with
+its roaring river, and innumerable falls that
+had to be circled about. But at last they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>
+came out at a fiord of the sea. The wind
+of an icy rain was frosting the gray-green
+waves of the great twenty-foot tide and
+blowing balls of the scud into the tree-tops
+of the encircling woods. The air rang with
+the cries of sea birds. Sitka leaped and
+frisked after the foam, glorying in the salt
+smell of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Further out, there were the great bergs
+growling and grinding against one another
+and making great waves in the fiord. A
+distant glacier cracked with a sound like
+thunder as a mammoth chunk of it broke
+off and a new berg was born, to toss and
+splash and cause even more excitement
+among the lashing waves.</p>
+
+<p>“Hurray!” whoofed Sitka. “This feels
+like home again.” And following Mother
+White Bear, he plunged off the pink limestone
+cliff into the water and started swimming
+with great, powerful strokes of his
+fore paws.</p>
+
+<p>Had anyone told the cub as he frisked so
+exuberantly in his favorite element that
+anything ugly and dangerous inhabited<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
+those winging waves, he would not have
+believed it. And yet at that very moment—but
+that is another chapter!</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c10">CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">MONSTERS OF THE SEA</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>N a sea ruffled to purple in the wind,
+Mother White bear, busy catching fish,
+glimpsed three large black fins.</p>
+
+<p>Three piratical black fins, farther out at
+sea, approached like the sails of so many
+fishing dories, all in a row. That, she knew,
+meant orcas—killer whales! With a loud
+whoof she summoned Sitka to turn back
+and make for shore. He responded with
+that swift obedience she had taught him.
+But though he was swift, the orcas were
+swifter. But he was not far from a high
+rock that jutted up out of shoal water.
+When he had scrambled up beside his
+mother, his legs were trembling and his
+breath quite gone.</p>
+
+<p>When the disappointed orcas had swum
+away again, their great black fins rising<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>
+from the curve of their backs, and the two
+white streaks on their sides shouting a
+warning to those that could read it, Mother
+White Bear was reminded of a battle she
+had once seen between an orca and a cachalot,
+one of the giant sperm whales. Of
+course Sitka wanted the story.</p>
+
+<p>“Fortunately,” said Mother White Bear,
+“cachalots never come as far North as this.
+It was the time I drifted so far South on
+the ice that I saw this battle. A cachalot
+mother had come to a quiet inlet off the
+coast of Southern Alaska to rear her baby.
+It must have been an exceptional case, for
+though I have heard of orcas going far
+South, I never knew of but the one cachalot
+to come so far North. But a traveler such
+as myself sees many an unusual happening.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going to be a traveler, too,” vowed
+Sitka.</p>
+
+<p>“You certainly will, if you grow up into
+a regular bear,” she agreed. “But first you
+know that whales are mammals, like bears
+and dogs, and nurse their babies.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Honestly?” marvelled Sitka.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. And the orca mother has a way of
+carrying her calf tucked behind her left
+flipper, or as it were, in her left arm, and
+nursing it as she lies floating on a quiet
+sea. Both she and her calf are cream colored
+on their under sides, so that the fish
+below cannot see them so plainly. For of
+course they live largely on fish.</p>
+
+<p>“She herself is content to eat the great,
+sluggish fish that live in shallow seas,
+though she is also fond of seals, and I have
+seen her devour one whole. The one I saw
+and I suppose they are all alike, was lean
+and quick, and could dive and swim with
+marvelous agility. The Eskimos would have
+found very little blubber on her. And unlike
+the great, stupid, lubberly creatures
+you saw the Eskimos hunting, this particular
+whale is a good fighter, as you shall see,
+and cunning too. But with all this, she
+loves her calf.”</p>
+
+<p>“What happened?” begged Sitka impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>“I was watching from a cliff,” continued<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>
+Mother White Bear. “First I saw this cachalot
+mother nursing her calf under her left
+flipper, and I was amazed that such a huge
+creature could be so gentle. For this giant
+creature had a head nearly a third of her
+entire size, and she could open her jaws
+till you and I could have found room to den
+up for the winter right in her mouth. And
+that huge mouth was armed with teeth that
+could have crunched you in one bite.” Sitka
+shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I saw a band of orcas coming. She
+saw them, too, and started out to meet
+them, but it meant leaving her calf behind,
+and she turned back to the little fellow, perhaps
+afraid that something might come by
+and eat him while her back was turned. But
+if she stayed, the orcas would get him. So
+she turned once more to meet their advancing
+front. Picture that row of black fins
+coming all in a row!</p>
+
+<p>“Well, that cachalot just simply opened
+that huge mouth of hers and snapped her
+jaws on the first orca she could reach, and
+the water turned red around them!—The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>
+other orcas,—there were five of them in
+that pack,—tried to swim around either
+side of her, at a good safe distance, but she
+was so afraid they would reach her calf
+that she chased them ferociously, without
+a thought for her own safety, and you
+would have laughed to see these same orcas,
+these dread killer whales, turning tail and
+admitting their defeat, five to one that they
+were! But they would have stood not a
+chance with those great jaws of hers, swift
+and fierce as the orcas were.”</p>
+
+<p>“Everything is afraid of something else,
+isn’t it, Mother?” said Sitka.</p>
+
+<p>“There is nothing I fear for myself save
+wolves,” said Mother White Bear.</p>
+
+<p>“I am afraid of that Eskimo boy,” Sitka
+admitted.</p>
+
+<p>“And perhaps he is afraid of you.”</p>
+
+<p>“And of orcas?” the little bear surmised.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="greentext">Note</span>—The Eskimos around Bering Sea believe that the
+killer whales are wolves in sea form. They tell it that
+when the world was young the wolves of the land used to
+enter the sea, changing their form as they did so and
+becoming orcas. When they returned to land, they
+changed back to wolves. To this day the little brown
+men fear the orca as the wolf of the sea.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A sweep of her paw and Mother White
+Bear had landed a shining fish, which she
+proceeded to eat, bidding Sitka go catch one
+for himself. For he needed practice.</p>
+
+<p>After they had both dined and slept, and
+felt ready to go on, they swam about thirty
+miles fairly close to shore. A polar bear
+can swim forty miles at a stretch if she has
+to. Sitka tired, and his mother allowed
+him to tow himself along by her tail once
+in a while to rest him. And again they
+caught fish and climbed aboard a floating
+ice pan to sleep the lengthening night away.</p>
+
+<p>That was their program for many days,—swimming
+so close to shore that they
+could see the ragged outline of the pointed
+green-black firs when it was not too foggy.
+The thunder of the surf was in their ears,
+and the taste of the bitter brine was in their
+nostrils, for the wind blew the sea into
+foam.</p>
+
+<p>Then one day, their first sunny day in
+weeks, they came to the edge of the pack
+ice.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c11">CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">TOOTH AND FANG</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE winter sun circled lower and lower
+about the horizon as the ice packed
+more and more solidly in the bay. By the
+first of November it was forty degrees below
+zero. But Sitka and his mother loved it.</p>
+
+<p>They had fed fat all fall, in preparation
+for their long winter sleep. Then Sitka had
+grown amazingly. He could now swim under
+ice, if he had to escape the lunge of
+some infuriated walrus, or he could fell a
+seal with one blow of his powerful fore-arm.</p>
+
+<p>Now that they were back on the pack-ice,
+they often saw Unga, the Eskimo boy who
+had tried to capture Sitka as a wee cub.
+Mother White Bear could not forgive that
+escapade. Sometimes the boy tried to
+creep up on the white cub when he was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>
+little separated from his mother, and the
+lad vowed to the boys of his village that the
+cub’s fur should be his.</p>
+
+<p>The little Eskimo and his tribe lived on
+a peninsula that reached far out into the
+polar sea, now all pack-ice, which rose in
+ridges like the waves of the sea it covered.
+Their igloos were cunningly fashioned of
+stone blocks into huts as round as bee-hives,
+and had to be entered by stooping low
+through a winding tunnel, and finally getting
+down on hands and knees. But once
+inside, they were as warm as the lamp of
+blubber with its wick of moss could make it,
+and these hardy people half hibernated
+comfortably enough through weather sixty
+below zero.</p>
+
+<p>Unga, like all Eskimos, had to make it his
+chief concern in life to find enough to eat,—and
+he loved bear meat best of all. Second,
+he had to have warm clothing, and warm
+bedding, or he would die. Bear fur was
+his favorite blanket, and bearskin the material
+of which his tribe fashioned their
+knickerbockers. After his fourteenth year<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>
+he used to join the bands who went out,
+for weeks and sometimes months at a time
+in summer, taking skin tents on their dog
+sleds, in search of the great white bears,
+and the half-human track of one of these
+in the snow, plainly visible even in the blue
+moonlight of the Arctic dusk,—would send
+a thrill of delight down Unga’s spine. The
+black eyes and nose tip, which was all that
+could be seen of the snowy animals against
+the snow, unless they moved, was the signal
+for setting the dogs on their trail. But
+Sitka always had the presence of mind to
+run against the wind, so that the dogs could
+not scent him. Most of the time he kept
+well out at sea.</p>
+
+<p>When the ice lay shiny and free of snow,
+however, bears and Eskimos alike used to
+go seal hunting in the famine of spring.
+That way, Sitka and Unga often met. Their
+method of hunting was curiously alike, for
+Unga tied fur to his feet and his tread was
+noiseless. As a seal would come up to its
+breathing hole in the ice, a series of loud
+blowing sounds meant that it was filling its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>
+lungs for a dive. At this time the hunter
+boy or bear, could approach unheard. Between
+whiles he laid low behind a furrow
+of the ice. If the seal took alarm, the boy,
+lying flat on his stomach, would cunningly
+move his feet like seal’s hind flippers and
+so deceive his intended victim. Sitka learned
+that trick of him. Then would come the
+boy’s harpoon, or the bear’s harpooning
+claws, thrust through the hole into the head
+of the disappearing seal.</p>
+
+<p>In their igloos these stubby, fur-clad little
+brown people, who were Unga’s people,
+would spend the winter half starving and
+half feasting on their occasional catch of
+seal or bear meat. Sitka often used to see
+them racing through the twilight of the
+autumn day behind their dog-sleds, the
+crackling of their whips echoing from the
+great bergs.</p>
+
+<p>The water, where it lay open, now shone
+blue-black under the long night, and the
+seals remained somewhere below the ice-pack,
+save when they came to poke their
+noses through their air-holes. Sitka found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>
+he was just able to scramble through the
+larger air holes.</p>
+
+<p>One day the air was such a mist of falling
+flakes that Sitka and his mother could not
+see two steps before them. The swirl and
+drift of the on-coming blizzard fairly carried
+them off their feet. Then came sharp
+ice spicules that filled the air blindingly and
+cut into their nostrils. “It is high time we
+found a place to hibernate,” decided Mother
+White Bear. But wander as they would,
+through the dark and the drift, they could
+find neither cave nor shelter. Sitka grew
+terribly sleepy, and would have curled up
+on the naked ice, but that his mother insisted
+on keeping up the search for a few
+days longer.</p>
+
+<p>Then one day—the first warning came as
+a swirl of snow. In five minutes the wind
+from the mountains had lifted them bodily
+and flung them down on the ice. Nor would
+the on-coming storm allow them to rise to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>
+their feet again, but blew them along, till,
+with a roar that nearly split their eardrums,
+black darkness pressed upon them.
+In that same instant they went over the
+edge of a fissure that cut a deep V in the ice.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p><span class="greentext">Note</span>—In the face of storms like these, Peary and
+other white explorers (aided by the Eskimos) have sought
+to make their way into our “farthest North.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Their fall was softened by the snow that
+filled the crevice, and turning their misfortune
+into good, they welcomed the shelter
+it gave them from the freezing wind, and
+huddled together till the storm should have
+done its worst. The snow drifted in upon
+them, but the warmth of their breathing
+kept a little air space melted about their
+faces. But Mother White Bear knew better
+than to spend the winter in such a dangerous
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Later they had a dreadful time scrambling
+up the slippery sides of their prison,
+but they clung with their steel claws to
+every roughness of the ice walls, and finally
+flung themselves over the edge.</p>
+
+<p>Another time it was the Eskimo village
+they unwittingly wandered into in the
+storm. It was an igloo with its winding
+entrance tunnel against which they had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>
+taken shelter, and within that igloo—as
+luck would have it—lived the boy who had
+set his heart on having Sitka’s fur.</p>
+
+<p>When, three days later, the two bears
+were awakened by hearing a savage snarling
+as the husky dogs began digging them
+out, they realized that it was to be tooth
+and fang if they were to get out of the
+place alive.</p>
+
+<p>Savage as wolves were the great gray
+dogs of Unga’s father’s sledge team. Savage
+and hungry!—And fond of bear meat!—It
+was a circle of fangs they faced as they rose
+on their haunches to meet the foe. But
+Sitka and Mother White Bear had fangs of
+their own, and what was more to their
+advantage, each powerful fore-paw was
+armed with a set of razor-sharp claws, and
+each fist could have felled any dog on whose
+skull it could land a blow.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for the two bears, Unga was
+asleep in the igloo when the trouble started.
+“Snap!” went the jaws of the foremost
+husky dog, the leader of the team, a savage
+brute, half wolf.—Sitka’s paw barely escaped.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>
+Then “swish” went Sitka’s right
+fore-paw, ripping the husky’s side in a long
+red gash. “Snap!” “Snap!” “Swish!” raged
+the combat, the two bears just holding their
+own against a semicircle of five huskies.
+Mother White Bear could handle four to
+Sitka’s one.</p>
+
+<p>It all happened in a twinkling. Then just
+as Mother White Bear gave the cub the
+signal to make a dash with her for the
+open, on came two more huskies who had
+broken loose from a team that stood harnessed
+within sound of the rumpus.</p>
+
+<p>“Slash! slash!” went Mother White Bear,
+sending the two new dogs howling. “Biff,
+biff, biff!” and she had keeled over three
+more of her foes. “Slash!” went Sitka, nearly
+finishing another of the huskies. Just as he
+wheeled to follow his mother, Unga appeared
+at the door of the tunnel, bone-tipped
+spear in hand. “Biff!” went Sitka,
+whirling like a spinning top, just happening
+to knock the spear out of his enemy’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>In that instant of time, Mother White
+Bear had disappeared, doubling and dodging<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>
+through the igloos with one dog nipping
+at her heels. Sitka sped frantically to one
+side, knowing nothing of where he was
+headed. By one of those chances, so-called,
+that sometimes happen, he came to a seal
+hole. It was a tight squeeze, but he just
+managed to dive through it before two of
+the huskies he had wounded would have
+been upon him.</p>
+
+<p>It was the cache of the white explorers
+that finally reunited Sitka, the little white
+bear, and his mother.</p>
+
+<p>The ship of the white men lay frozen fast
+in the harbor, till Spring should once more
+come to the Arctic Circle; and two weeks
+travel by dog-sled, a ton of dried salmon
+to be fed to their sledge dogs lay beneath
+a rock pile. But though the fish lay hidden
+beneath rock and ice and snow, it was not
+hidden from the sharp noses of Sitka and
+Mother White Bear. No sooner had the
+great storm subsided than those noses,
+which peopled the Alaskan world with a
+million odors no human being could detect,—those
+wonderful noses of theirs caught<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>
+the odor of that salmon. And my! how they
+clawed away the rocks with their powerful
+claws, and my! how they feasted! Their
+furry white sides fairly stuck out before
+they had finished. Though it was time for
+their long winter sleep, they could keep
+alive on that through all the bitter polar
+night. It was a rare piece of good fortune
+for the two travelers.</p>
+
+<p>After that they found a cave in the ice,
+tiny, but snug, and large enough for the
+pair of them to curl up together comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring Sitka discovered that he
+had grown enormously while he slept. He
+could now tease the old bull walruses to his
+heart’s content, mischievously stealing their
+clams every time their clumsy backs were
+turned, with no fear of being overtaken and
+punished.</p>
+
+<p>He even caught himself a bellowing walrus
+calf for dinner. Life would no longer
+be so serious to young Sitka, for there remained
+absolutely nothing in all the seas
+that he feared.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p>
+
+<p>Of course, on land, there were the fierce
+Arctic wolves and the wolfish husky dogs.
+But he had little intention of going near
+either of these.</p>
+
+<p>He feared neither cold nor darkness now,
+nor anything in all that white world save
+one living creature. He remembered the
+Eskimo lad with his spear, and his strange
+way of walking on his hind legs and wearing
+other animals’ fur, and him he did fear
+when next they met, with such a fear when
+again the boy pursued him that the little
+bear ran for his life.</p>
+
+<p>Mother White Bear finally decided that
+they should spend the summer far out at
+sea. They could ramble over the ice floes
+as far as Bering Strait, catching fish along
+the way and keeping a sharp eye out for
+any such delicacy as a chunk of whale blubber
+left behind at the Eskimo hunting
+grounds.</p>
+
+<p>As the sun circled higher and higher,
+they began to come across bird colonies on
+the rocky islets,—auks sitting in prim rows
+along the edge of the cliffs, gulls robbing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>
+the little puffins, with a clamor of their
+shrill “ka-ka-ka,” of their catch of herring,
+sometimes the auks robbing the nesting
+gulls of their one precious egg. Again the
+pirate skuas darted hawklike to rob the
+auks of their one precious egg. It was a
+hard land, and bird and beast were hard of
+heart, for it was a bitter struggle just to
+keep alive.</p>
+
+<p>Sitka and his mother had fine times
+breakfasting on birds’ eggs.</p>
+
+<p>How the little white bear loved the thunder
+of the surf, the crackle of floes breaking
+from the ice-fields, and the roar of ice-berg
+grinding against berg!</p>
+
+<p>He loved the gray fog and the smell of
+the bitter brine, and the sleety rain of
+which they had so much. In his warm white
+furs he would have found sunshine uncomfortable.
+He enjoyed this trip better than
+their accidental visit of the summer before
+on the South-floating berg.</p>
+
+<p>Never did he tire of staring at the Auroras,
+and the glaciers glowing with the
+reflection of the stars.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p>
+
+<p>Later in the summer Mother White Bear
+became acquainted with a handsome great
+nine-foot polar bear who was a champion
+in several ways. He could swim forty miles
+through the icy seas, and he had come off
+victorious in many a battle with wolves and
+Eskimos. As the long daylight warmed the
+air, they two used to go on long fishing
+trips, leaving Sitka behind,—though the
+first thing that youngster knew, he was
+so big and self-reliant that he really preferred
+to explore the ice floes by himself.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c12">CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">“LET THERE BE PEACE”</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>NCE the next fall Sitka again met the
+Eskimo, who again pursued him with
+his spear. This time the little bear made a
+great dive into the sea and swam to safety
+under water.</p>
+
+<p>But apparently the little brown boy was
+determined to have his hide,—as determined
+as the little white bear was to keep
+it. For Unga had boasted in his village that
+he meant to get that bear. He had vowed
+to have Sitka’s great fur coat.</p>
+
+<p>The next year, when Sitka had grown
+larger still, and Mother White Bear was too
+busy with his new little brother to pay him
+any attention, the Eskimo nicked his ear
+with his bone-pointed spear. After that
+he knew him by that nicked ear. The year<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>
+after he grazed Sitka’s side, and Sitka
+turned and pursued him angrily, as determined
+now to get the boy as the boy was
+to get the bear.</p>
+
+<p>Year after year went by, while Sitka
+grew into a huge white monster, and Unga
+developed into a lithe little brown-faced
+man clad in the fur of his kill. And it came
+to pass that the Eskimo’s one great desire
+was to carry Sitka’s pelt to his igloo and
+deliver his boast to the admiring eyes of
+his village. And Sitka knew that the Eskimo
+youth would never leave him in peace
+while they both should live.</p>
+
+<p>One autumn when Sitka was ten years
+old and the Eskimo twenty, they had both
+gone far inland over the Arctic barrens,
+and both for the same reason, in the hope
+of securing some reindeer meat. As it happened,
+a hoard of the great, white Arctic
+wolves had also followed the deer.</p>
+
+<p>One night Sitka stood gazing at the most
+wonderful Aurora he had ever seen. Brilliant
+bars of light colored like the rainbow
+marched across the Northern sky-line,—always<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>
+from West to East. Suddenly across
+the glowing North stalked a row of seven
+of the great white wolves. Failing to find
+the reindeer, and seeing Sitka so far from
+his native seas, they began circling toward
+him; and though the lone bear knew better
+than to hope to fight off so many foes, and
+though he took to his heels with all swiftness,
+the wolves were swifter, and soon he
+was baring fang and claw to a circle of
+famished green eyes and slavering jaws.
+Sitka reared himself on his great haunches,
+towering tall above them, that he might sell
+his life dearly.</p>
+
+<p>But Unga had also seen the seven wolves,
+white against the ruddy sky. And he had
+seen the great white bear prints, and knew
+that his old-time foe was near. Now, he
+told himself with chagrin, the wolves would
+get the bear, not he,—and he could never
+bring the great white pelt to his village in
+the pride of his long-time boast.</p>
+
+<p>Like the flight of a falling star a bright
+idea shot into his head. He, armed as he
+was with the musket the white men had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>
+given his father, would fight the wolves off
+the bear! Then he would still have a chance,
+some day, of getting the bear himself.</p>
+
+<p>With the fire-arm that spoke death from
+afar, he came running to meet the wolves.
+With his musket that out-marvelled the
+sharpest spear he brought down the foremost
+wolf. But the shot only wounded that
+great beast, so white against the surrounding
+whiteness,—it did not stop him long.
+The surprise of that gave the little brown
+man pause. A new thought appalled him.
+Should his gun fail too often, might he not
+find himself in danger?</p>
+
+<p>On came the ravening wolf pack, and
+back fell the Eskimo with his weapon that
+here broke a leg and there caused the red
+blood to flow, but did not stop the wolves.
+Soon Unga was standing back to back with
+the great white bear, within the narrowing
+circle of their foes, aware that not the
+bear’s life alone, but his own, lay largely in
+Sitka’s fighting powers.</p>
+
+<p>But though the great bear unaided could
+not have felled so many foes, who darted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>
+now on this side, now on that, under his
+guard in intent to ham-string him, nor
+could the Eskimo alone have handled so
+many with even the best of weapons, between
+them they put first one, then another
+of the attacking hoard to rout. Where the
+great bear was taken at a disadvantage, the
+Eskimo came to the rescue. Where the
+little brown man would have been overwhelmed,
+the mailed white forearm of his
+furry foe sent one more of their common
+foes to writhing in an agony of deep-cut
+wounds. Now the leader wolf had turned
+the brunt of his ferocity on the weaker animal,
+which was the man. But Unga’s musket,
+pointed close, blew the old wolf’s head
+off. Then the next in leadership of the wolf
+pack approached the bear, keen to dart under
+his mailed fist, that guarded his vitals,
+and out again before punishment descended.
+But the lightning swiftness of
+that mailed fist was aided by the roar of
+the man-made weapon close at his head, and
+he was done for.</p>
+
+<p>All this while the little brown man recognized<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>
+with amazement that for himself as
+well as the bear it had become a matter of
+life and death. They two stood back to back,
+comrades of battle, with Sitka, red-eyed and
+furious, turning the tide of battle in his
+favor. And twin to the thought, he also
+recognized that, were it not for his musket,
+the bear would soon have been laid low on
+the snow instead of the mangled wolves.</p>
+
+<p>The bear also was bleeding, as was the
+little brown man, but both would heal
+quickly, as the wounds were not deep. But
+the wolves lay dead at their feet.</p>
+
+<p>The bear stood licking his wounds, while
+the Auroral curtain shot beauty across the
+frozen sky, as if nothing but beauty could
+exist in all the white Arctic world. Sitka
+was too blinded with blood to see his remaining
+enemy,—his life-long enemy, more
+feared by far than the wolves had ever
+been. Unga could have got him then. But
+he didn’t!</p>
+
+<p>He had fought side by side with this
+great furry fellow, with their two lives in
+the balance. He had fought to save the bear,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>
+and the bear’s good fight had saved his own
+life. They were fellow fighters! They had
+fought together,—and won!</p>
+
+<p>It came to him then that he no longer
+wanted the pelt of the plucky brute. He no
+longer cared to make it his boast in the village
+nor wear it before his igloo. Why, he
+owed a debt of gratitude to that bear, and
+the bear was already his in the sense that
+he had saved him. Besides, the great white
+beast, whom he had watched from the days
+of his wee, fat cub-hood,—this dumb brute
+who would now be so helpless against the
+pointing of the man-made musket,—had he
+not fairly won his life and freedom?</p>
+
+<p>“Do you go your way, and I will go mine,”
+he said in his heart, and by some strange
+telepathy, Sitka in his heart understood.
+“Henceforth, let there be peace between
+us!”</p>
+
+<p>The little brown man sped away into the
+Arctic night, to the East where the reindeer
+herded, and Sitka shambled off toward the
+West, where the fish of the sea never failed
+him.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c13">FINNY-FOOT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="c sp">I. THE WATER PUPPY</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">F</span>INNY-FOOT first opened his round,
+wondering eyes on a world of sun-kissed
+waves, deep blue beneath a deep blue
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>The waves slapped in white foam against
+the rocks, and the sky foamed with white
+wind clouds. The rocks were slippery with
+sea-weed, and shone as sleek as the wet
+brown fur of the seals. Finny-Foot’s woolly
+white coat, which is what Harbor Seal
+babies always wear their first spring, made
+him look like just another of the fat white
+balls of foam that the April wind tossed up
+and down the yellow sand of the beach. But
+the gray gulls flying over-head knew, and
+called to one another to see the new water
+puppy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p>
+
+<p>His parents, like the aunts and uncles and
+grandfather of the little colony, wore gray,
+like the ocean on a dull day, with spots of
+darker gray. But the new young cousins
+were all white like Finny-Foot.</p>
+
+<p>In the beginning, while Mother Nature
+was still trying first one kind of animal, and
+then another, to see which made the best
+pattern, these water puppies had lived on
+land, and had outside ears like any other
+dog, and four short legs on which to carry
+their fat, furry bodies. Then their great-great-ever-so-great
+grand-parents had decided
+to live on the rocks of the harbors
+up and down the sea-shore, where it would
+be easier to catch the fish on which they
+lived. Of course then Mother Nature
+changed their legs to “flippers” or fin-feet,
+so that it would be easier for them to swim.
+That is why seals look so much like fish,
+with their fore flippers for fins and their
+hind ones held together like a tail.</p>
+
+<p>They bark like dogs, though, and those
+finny-looking fore-feet help them to crawl
+about on land, as well as swim. Of course<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>
+now that they have become water animals,
+their ears are all covered with fur, so that
+you might think they didn’t have any ears
+at all. But they can hear a fish swim by,
+for all that.</p>
+
+<p>At first Finny-Foot cried when he was
+hungry, in a voice almost like that of a
+human baby, and was nursed like any other
+puppy. Then he learned to eat the tender
+young sea salmon that his mother caught
+for him,—and the clams and scallops that
+she found and shelled for him. It was a
+pleasant life. He had nothing to do but
+tumble about with the other seal babies, or
+lie watching the gulls that circled back and
+forth with the big, salt-smelling waves,
+singing in their hoarse voices that sounded
+so like rusty hinges, and watching for fish
+they might grab.</p>
+
+<p>One day, too, the whole sky seemed covered
+with a mammoth flock of ducks, (Surf
+Scoters), who were going to Alaska for the
+summer, where they would not find it so
+crowded when their young were hatched.
+For hours the V-shaped flocks swept Northward<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>
+in a gray-black cloud, while the air
+rang with their musical whistle. Finny-Foot
+stared, his puppy-like eyes round with
+wonder, but at last they all disappeared into
+the blue distance. There must have been
+hundreds and thousands and millions of
+them. How he wished he, too, might travel
+and see the world beyond those rocks! He
+little dreamed how soon his wish was to
+come true, nor in what an amazing fashion.</p>
+
+<p>His mother kept his oily fur sleek and
+shining, so that he could slide through the
+water easily, and he had no trouble at all
+about learning to swim. Soon he could catch
+a tiny fish in his jaws, if he swam after it
+fast enough, and his fur turned gray in
+leopard-like spots.</p>
+
+<p>One day, though, these happy, quiet times
+came to a sudden end. At first the only
+thing he noticed was a row of half a dozen
+long black fins cutting through the waves,
+far out at sea. Swiftly the black fins came
+nearer, then an up-toss of their heads
+showed the circling gulls a row of mammoth
+jaws, armed with the most murderous-looking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>
+teeth. It was a band of killer
+whales, and at the sight, every seal on the
+rocks started swimming for shore as fast
+as he could go.</p>
+
+<p>Finny-Foot’s mother towed him with her
+when his strength gave out, and so great
+was her fright that she never stopped till
+she had him far up on the sandy beach,
+where the whales could not follow. Those
+of their colony who were not swift enough
+got caught, and were devoured by the fish-shaped
+monsters who were not fish, and
+whose ugly black sides bore white patches
+that glistened in the sun. Each one had
+a fin on the middle of his back that stuck
+straight up, so that you could see it a long
+way off. It was that that had given them
+warning.</p>
+
+<p>All afternoon they waited on the beach.
+Then at last the row of black fins headed
+out to sea, and it was deemed safe by
+Grandfather Seal to return to the rocks and
+fish for supper. And to hear them barking
+under the moon that night, watching the
+white foam blowing down the beach in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>wind, no one would have known the bloody
+fate that they had so narrowly escaped.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/fig3.jpg" alt="beach">
+<p class="caption">She never stopped till she had him on the sandy beach.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the killer whales came back next
+day, and this time took them so nearly by
+surprise that there was not time to swim
+to shore, and those who could not scramble
+to the highest point of the highest rock
+were swallowed whole. How they huddled
+together upon that high rock, while the
+killers swam around and around them
+watching to see if one of them would not
+fall off into the water where they could
+reach them! Finny-Foot’s mother tucked
+him into a crevice and stood over him. No
+use for his father, and the other fathers,
+even to put up a fight against the killers.
+They wouldn’t have had a chance in the
+world. But once more the whales swam
+back to sea, and this time they did not return;
+for they, too, were on their way to
+Alaska, where they hoped to catch the fur
+seals as they migrated Southward.</p>
+
+<p>One day that summer, when Finny-Foot’s
+mother and her neighbors felt quite sure
+there were no killers about, (Grandfather<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>
+had been watching the sea all day with his
+big, round eyes), they decided to have a
+picnic, and explore some rocks further out
+in Monterey Harbor, where the painted
+boats of the fishermen pass.</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be a wonderful fishing-ground.
+Finny-Foot, forgetting his mother’s
+command to stay close by her side, swam
+out to the dories, his round eyes bulging
+with wonder at the way they pulled up their
+netfuls of fish. Then he saw a big salmon
+that he wanted to catch.</p>
+
+<p>The fish made a sudden dive, and Finny-Foot,
+taking a deep breath, dove after him.
+The next thing he knew, he was all tangled
+up in something. Then he was lifted straight
+into the air, in the midst of a netful of
+wriggling, flapping fish.</p>
+
+<p>“Father!” cried a black-eyed little boy.
+“See what I’ve caught! Oo!—May I have
+it?”</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c14">II. PIETRO’S<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> PET</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>HEN Finny-Foot, the seal baby,
+found himself in the fisherman’s net,
+he never once thought how easy it would be
+to catch one of the fish wriggling all about
+him.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Note—Pronounce Pya tro.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>His first thought was surprise that he
+should be rising out of the water against
+his will. Then he was afraid. He had never
+seen a human being so close before. Sometimes
+he had barked, with the family group
+on seal rocks, as people came to watch them
+from the beach. Then he would swim to
+the other side of the rocks to wait till all
+was safe once more.</p>
+
+<p>It was a boy of nine whose black eyes
+first spied Finny-Foot as the net was emptied.
+“Pietro” his father called him. His
+cheeks were flushed with the kiss of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>
+California sun, and his black curls blew in
+the breeze, as he stood bare-footed in the
+fishing-boat. This boy spoke words that
+Finny-Foot, of course, could not understand.
+But he read the kindness in his
+tones, and he felt the gentleness with which
+the boy stroked his furry head, and he was
+no longer quite so frightened.</p>
+
+<p>The boy must have asked his father if
+he might have the seal for a pet, because
+in another moment he was hugging him
+joyously, both arms tight around him, while
+the fish squirmed at their feet, and the man
+and his partner set sail for home.</p>
+
+<p>But though Finny-Foot was no longer so
+afraid of being killed and eaten, as the
+killer whales would have eaten him, swallowing
+the little fellow whole, he suddenly
+realized that he was a long way from home
+and mother. Putting his fore flippers on
+Pietro’s shoulder, he began to cry, and you
+would never believe how much it sounded
+like a human baby crying for its mother.</p>
+
+<p>Pietro stroked his wet, oily, fishy-smelling
+fur, which was as soft as a kitten’s, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>
+tried to comfort him, but still the seal baby
+wailed his loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>His mother heard him, too, and came
+swimming after the boat, her great eyes
+questioning his round, frightened eyes, as
+he peered over Pietro’s shoulder. But when
+he struggled to get free, the boy only held
+him the tighter, and Pietro and the men
+had their eyes on the course ahead, for the
+stiffening wind was carrying them along at
+a great rate. But she followed as far as she
+could, then sadly gave it up and went back
+to tell the colony what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>By and by it occurred to Pietro that his
+pet might be hungry, and he offered him a
+little fish. Finny-Foot ate it eagerly, and
+the boy laughed at his round, puppy-like
+head, and kitten-like whiskers, and the
+clever fore fins that he had instead of arms.
+He looked like a fish, in one way, too, with
+his hind flippers held back close together
+like a tail.</p>
+
+<p>When they had landed at Fisherman’s
+Wharf and Pietro had carried the pale,
+spotty-coated little fellow to the shack<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>
+where the nets hung drying, young Finny-Foot
+surprised the boy by walking across
+the porch. It was a funny walk, but we will
+have to call it that, because it certainly was
+not swimming. First the seal would raise
+himself on his fore nippers, then draw himself
+forward, with a hump of his back.
+Sometimes he used his hind flippers, and
+sometimes he kicked them together straight
+up in the air. The other fishermen’s children
+greeted this performance with shrieks
+of laughter; and they offered him fish till
+Pietro had to put a stop to it, for fear Finny-Foot
+would over-eat.</p>
+
+<p>He got his mother’s wash-tub and filled
+it with sea water for his strange visitor;
+then, with the help of some of his young
+neighbors, he rolled a great rock up on the
+porch beside it, in the sunshine. There, he
+felt, the little seal might feel at home. Then
+he hooked the screen door on the inside,
+so that no one could get in to tease him.</p>
+
+<p>Finny-Foot was a tiny fellow. His mother
+had been only five feet long, for she was
+a harbor or leopard seal, not a fur seal. Her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>
+tribe, an old sailorman told Pietro, are
+found everywhere, from the Arctic Ocean
+to South Carolina on the Atlantic side and
+Southern California on the Pacific. All up
+and down the coast, this old sailor had seen
+harbor seals, barking on the rocks and fishing
+on the sandy bars. He had heard they
+even swam away up some of the big rivers
+and into the Great Lakes. They have been
+seen off the coast of the British Isles, and
+as far away as Japan.</p>
+
+<p>Finny-Foot soon learned to know the boy
+as his friend, and inside of a week was
+genuinely fond of him. He loved to have
+Pietro stroke his silky fur. He would come
+humping himself along to where the boy
+sat in the sunshine, mending his father’s
+nets, and lay his round, white head against
+his arm, and make a funny puppy-like
+sound that the boy came to understand
+meant: “Please come and play with me!”</p>
+
+<p>Then Pietro would teach him to fetch and
+carry a stick, or some other simple trick.
+He longed to try throwing the stick in the
+water for Finny-Foot to retrieve, but he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>
+never felt quite sure that his odd pet would
+swim back to him.</p>
+
+<p>An old seaman used to watch the seal at
+his antics. One day he offered the boy a
+dollar for his pet. He said he wanted to
+take Finny-Foot on board the whaling vessel
+for a mascot, to bring them luck. But
+the boy would not part with him.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the old sailor offered him
+five dollars, but still Pietro would not listen.
+His ship was to sail the next day at dawn,
+and the boy heaved a sigh of relief when,
+with a final offer of seven dollars, the old
+man said goodbye. The money would have
+meant needed clothes to the fisherman’s
+boy, but he would not part with his pet.</p>
+
+<p>Then as Pietro was looking at a newspaper
+that someone had left on the wharf,
+his eyes caught the picture of a troupe of
+trained seals rolling barrels. They were to
+be in next week’s vaudeville show, and
+Pietro resolved to find a way to see it.</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c15">III. THE TRAINED SEALS</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>’VE got a trained seal,” Pietro told the
+man at the ticket window, as he stood on
+tip-toe to buy his seat. He had earned the
+quarter mending a net for a neighbor on
+Fisherman’s Wharf.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s that?” demanded a sharp-eyed
+man behind him, who happened to be the
+owner of the show.</p>
+
+<p>Pietro told him about Finny-Foot.</p>
+
+<p>“Where do you live?” the man asked,
+with a peculiar gleam in his eye. But the
+boy was too over-awed by the mirrored
+magnificence of the theatre to wonder at
+the question.</p>
+
+<p>The whole program, the usual vaudeville,
+entranced him. But when the trained
+seals appeared, his heart thrilled with delight.
+The curtain rose on a row of the
+clumsy fellows seated in a circle on up-turned
+barrels, barking in chorus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span></p>
+
+<p>First came a barrel-rolling contest, at
+which the audience applauded mightily, as
+it is rare to see trained seals. Pietro assured
+himself Finny-Foot did as well as the
+best of them. There was a trick seal who
+was always hiding from the showman.
+There was a mother seal in trailing skirts
+and plumed hat, holding her baby in her
+flappers. (The little seal looked too cunning
+in his white bonnet and long dress). There
+were other tricks, and every move the animals
+made, with their awkward flappers,
+sent the audience into gales of laughter.
+There was even a seal orchestra, which set
+Pietro wondering how they could hold their
+violins. He could not see that both instrument
+and bow were tied in place. The
+showman rewarded each performer with a
+fish, just as Pietro did Finny-Foot. The big
+bull seal at the kettle drums would hammer
+away with all his might till he saw the man
+approach, then he would open his jaws for
+his fish and eat it, before again taking part
+in the symphony.</p>
+
+<p>But the thing everyone enjoyed the most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>
+was when a large glass tank was drawn on
+the stage. On an up-standing rock in the
+middle lay three seals, barking just as they
+might have off the shore of Monterey. The
+showman threw in a fish, and all three dove
+for it. He threw them another, and another,
+then a whole handful of small, silver-shining
+fingerlings, and the seals dove again and
+again for them, bringing them up in their
+jaws and holding them down with one flapper
+while they ate, if they were too large
+to swallow whole.</p>
+
+<p>Pietro went home as proud as a peacock
+to think that his seal could do tricks as
+good as those people paid to see.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, just as he had seated himself
+on the porch in the sunset glow, with
+Finny-Foot scrambling awkwardly for his
+supper, the showman appeared.</p>
+
+<p>“Now where is that seal?” he asked
+briskly.</p>
+
+<p>Finny-Foot was put through his paces,
+the boy proud and flattered by the showman’s
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>“What will you take for him?” the man<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>
+asked at last. “I need another seal for my
+pyramid act.”</p>
+
+<p>“What’s that?” Pietro’s father called
+through the window.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll give you five dollars for that seal,”
+said the showman, holding out a green-back.</p>
+
+<p>“But I don’t want to sell him,” said Pietro
+promptly.</p>
+
+<p>“Better take it,” advised his father. “It
+will buy a new coat for school.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do I have to, Father?”</p>
+
+<p>“As you please. It is your seal.”</p>
+
+<p>The showman added a dollar to the five
+in his hand. Pietro looked at the money,
+then at his ragged jacket. Six dollars would
+mean a lot to him. Then he looked down
+at Finny-Foot, whose round, puppy-like
+eyes were fastened on his trustingly. He
+wondered if the showman was kind to his
+seals. Then he remembered the whip he
+had snapped at them when they were slow
+to obey a command. Besides, how could a
+seal be happy so far from the ocean he
+loved? He remembered the old seal who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>
+lay all day on the side-walk of the Cliff
+House beach.</p>
+
+<p>“No!” decided the fisherman’s boy. Nor
+did the offer of more money change his
+mind. He only hugged his pet to his ragged
+coat and shook his curly head. Nor could
+the showman persuade Pietro’s father to
+interfere.</p>
+
+<p>After that the boy fell to thinking. Soon
+school would begin, and he must have shoes.
+One bright morning he took Finny-Foot in
+his arms, and made his way to the Ferry
+Building, where he sometimes earned a
+dime carrying someone’s suitcase. He was
+followed by a troupe of small boys and a
+dozen older people, who closed in about him
+in a circle when he set the seal on the
+ground. Borrowing an empty barrel from
+a man he knew at a fruit-stand, he began
+putting the seal through his barrel-rolling
+trick. Then he passed his hat. Nickels,
+dimes and pennies came pouring in,—mostly
+from the grown-up portion of his audience.
+When the next ferry-boat landed, pouring
+a new audience into the facade, he repeated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>
+his show. A third time he put Finny-Foot
+through his paces, and then passed the hat.</p>
+
+<p>A policeman stopped him. It seemed that
+there were several reasons why he could
+not give another show. But he had already
+earned enough money to buy the new shoes.</p>
+
+<p>After that Pietro had to leave Finny-Foot
+shut up all day while he went to school,
+and the young seal did not thrive. No longer
+would he caper joyously after the fish
+that were thrown him. No longer did his
+fur gleam velvety and his brown eyes shine.
+Pietro realized that a seal does not belong
+on dry land. He needs to live on the rocks
+off-shore, where he can dive for his dinner.
+Finny-Foot might even be homesick for the
+other seals. The boy’s heart ached with
+pity.</p>
+
+<p>Then he had an idea! When Saturday
+came, he went with his father in the fishing
+dory, and with them went Finny-Foot.</p>
+
+<p>They were not heading toward where
+Pietro had found his pet, but he waited till he
+had scanned the water in every direction to
+make sure there were no sharks, then he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>
+gave Finny-Foot one last pat on his puppy-like
+head, and hugged him, and let him slip
+into the water.</p>
+
+<p>The young seal, joyous with the feel of
+the salt tide, and never once thinking that
+he was leaving his friend, struck out for
+a point of rock he could just see above the
+wave tops. His muscles were soft from disuse,—but
+just let him reach those rocks,
+and rest awhile, and he would see if he
+could not find his way home!</p>
+<hr class="full">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c16">IV. FLAPPER THE FUR SEAL</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span>T was “sink or swim” for Finny-Foot,—and
+it was a long swim to the point of
+rock he had seen.</p>
+
+<p>He had almost given up, when the tide
+turned and carried him right toward it. But
+where was his mother, and the others he had
+left? Here was no sound of barking seals,
+though over on the yellow ribbon of beach
+sand the wee sandpipers ran up and down
+with the waves, just as they had at Monterey,
+and the gulls creaked and curveted
+overhead.</p>
+
+<p>“I want to go home!” wept Finny-Foot,
+in his voice like a human baby’s wail. But
+the only answer he received was the slap
+of the waves against his rock and the creak
+of gulls overhead.</p>
+
+<p>He caught a fish and ate it before he
+hid himself in a cranny of the rocks to take
+a nap. He awoke to an ocean deep blue<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>
+under the California sun, and a cloudless
+sky that seemed to bend down to meet it
+everywhere except where the beach met the
+never-ending waves with its yellow sand
+dunes. He caught another fish, and took
+another nap, and when he awoke this time
+he felt much better.</p>
+
+<p>He was just wondering if he could find
+Seal Rocks if he were to swim along close to
+shore, when he spied the up-standing fins
+of a band of killer whales. They were far
+out at sea, but he remembered what had
+happened to the seal colony when the killers
+had pursued them, and for days afterward
+he dared not make the venture.</p>
+
+<p>Then one morning, when the sea was
+calm, he sighted a big rock shining black
+and wet, further down the coast, and swam
+for it. This rock was even better for basking
+in the sunshine and diving for passing
+fish. But it was not home, and Finny-Foot
+was even lonelier now than he had been
+with Pietro. Again and again he started
+swimming further South, where he seemed
+to feel that home ought to be. But always<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>
+he saw sharks, and had to hide himself behind
+the nearest rock. Sometimes, too,
+after a long, tiring swim, he failed to find
+a good fishing ground and had to go hungry
+to sleep. Then he came to another town,
+where he was afraid to go too close to shore,
+and waited long days on a point of rock
+that looked far out to sea. There were
+always plenty of fish, but would he have
+to live all his life alone?</p>
+
+<p>One day he saw a sleek dark form swimming
+just off shore. Now Finny-Foot’s own
+family, like all harbor seals the world over,
+were gray spotted when full grown. But
+the newcomer was a rich dark brown and
+ever so much larger. Still, Finny knew he
+was a seal by the way he swam, and himself
+swam out to greet him.</p>
+
+<p>The visitor proved to be an Alaska fur
+seal, a young fellow who had migrated
+South with the other fur seals, but who had
+been wounded by a shark and had to go
+ashore till his wound was healed. He told
+Finny-Foot of that land of ice and snow
+where his own colony made its home. Finny-Foot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>
+decided that it must be the need of
+keeping warm so near the North Pole that
+gave him such wonderful fur, for he would
+need it there to keep him from freezing.</p>
+
+<p>There were millions of them where Flapper
+the Fur Seal came from. Every spring,
+he said, they started North, after a winter
+along the coast of Canada and as far South
+as Northern California. Often for days and
+weeks at a time they had to swim through
+a sea that was beaten into giant waves by
+the storm winds. Often rain and snow and
+sleet pommeled the sea all about them, and
+the sky hung low and gray with clouds, and
+they could hardly see for the gray fog that
+hung over everything. Sometimes they had
+to dodge between drifting ice-bergs that
+roared and cracked in the most terrific
+manner. Sometimes a storm would raise
+the waves so high that they were nearly
+drowned.</p>
+
+<p>But at last, just in time for the short
+Alaskan summer, they would reach the
+small, fog-hidden Pribilof Islands, where the
+mother seals, hundreds of them together,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>
+would raise their babies. The fish are so
+plentiful that the season is one long
+feast.</p>
+
+<p>The fur seal babies are a woolly black.
+And here the seal youngsters would play
+like puppies, racing and tumbling about together
+with their funny, awkward flappers,
+diving and swimming and leaping from the
+water, all in the merriest way imaginable.</p>
+
+<p>But even there the killer whales pursued
+them. Then, too, there were men who
+killed them for their fur, (Flapper said).
+There were great white polar bears who
+tried to catch them, and Eskimos and Indians,
+who kill them both for food and fur,
+so that a fur seal has to be continually on
+the alert.</p>
+
+<p>But all this danger and hardship had
+made Flapper unusually well able to take
+care of himself, and he thought that if
+Finny-Foot wanted to come along, they
+ought to be able to keep out of harm’s way
+until they found the little colony off Monterey.
+He himself, thought Flapper, ought
+now to wait until he saw some band of migrants<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>
+returning to Alaska, and join them
+for the two thousand mile journey home.</p>
+
+<p>Finny-Foot invited him to join the colony
+at Monterey, but Flapper said the warm
+climate was beginning to make him feel
+itchy in his heavy furs, and if he did not
+find his people within a few days more, he
+was going to swim back North by himself,
+at least as far as Canada.</p>
+
+<p>One curious thing he told Finny-Foot.
+Instead of each family having just one
+mother, as harbor seals did, there in Alaska
+a family might have a hundred mothers all
+bringing up their children on the same
+rocky islet. But that was because of several
+reasons. First, so many things happened
+to the more adventurous father seals, who
+had to fight off intruders, that often there
+weren’t enough to go around. Then the bull
+seal is so large, (four or five times as large
+as his mates), that he can easily protect
+a whole colony of mothers and babies.</p>
+
+<p>Finny-Foot thought he would much prefer
+to have the kind of families his own
+colony believed in. But then, of course,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>
+everything is so different in Alaska, where
+it means a struggle just to keep alive, that
+he supposed it must be necessary.</p>
+
+<p>One day he and Flapper had been playing
+together, Flapper leaping high above the
+water in great, glistening curves that
+Finny-Foot could not begin to imitate, when
+Flapper gave a bark of amazement. There,
+on a cluster of rocks in a curving harbor,
+above which the gulls creaked and curveted
+as they watched for fish, he could see a
+number of gray objects moving awkwardly
+about or diving into the tide.</p>
+
+<p>“Look!” he urged Finny-Foot. “I’ll bet
+that’s your colony!” But the little seal could
+not see. “Come on, let’s find out!” Flapper
+urged, almost as glad as if it had been his
+own people that he had found. And sure
+enough, there on the very rock on which
+Finny-Foot had spent his babyhood, a
+snow white pup, he saw his gray spotted
+mother, all alone.</p>
+
+<p>Just at first she did not recognize him,
+for he had grown so large and had turned
+gray spotted like herself. When she did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>
+realize that it was her son, whom she had
+given up for gone, she barked so joyously
+that every member of the colony came
+crowding around them, barking their welcome
+to him.</p>
+
+
+<p class="c sp">(THE END.)</p>
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="c17">GLOSSARY</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>Aurora Borealis—Northern Lights.</p>
+
+<p>Bidarka—Eskimo canoe.</p>
+
+<p>Cache—A hiding-place for food supplies.</p>
+
+<p>Fiord—A narrow inlet of the sea between
+steep cliffs.</p>
+
+<p>Glacier—A river of slow-flowing ice.</p>
+
+<p>“Husky”—Alaskan wolf-dog.</p>
+
+<p>Ice Berg—A huge chunk of ice that has
+broken off a glacier and floats in the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Ice Floe—A smaller chunk of ice.</p>
+
+<p>Ice Pan—The ice where the sea has frozen
+over.</p>
+
+<p>Igloo—Eskimo house.</p>
+
+<p>Lava—Molten rock from a volcano.</p>
+
+<p>Samlet—A young salmon.</p>
+
+<p>Tundra—Alaskan bog.</p>
+
+<p>Volcano—A mountain that spouts fire and
+lava.</p>
+
+<p>Zenith—The region of the North pole.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full">
+
+<div class="transnote">
+
+<p class="c">Transcriber’s Notes:</p>
+
+<p>Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.</p>
+
+<p>Perceived typographical errors have been changed.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78351 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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