sagacious eyes taking in the whole situation. Then, judiciously ignoring
the mother, she sprang over her, treading her down into the snow, fell
upon the fat calf, and with one tremendous buffet broke its neck.

"With a hoarse roar of grief and fury the cow wheeled upon her haunches,
reared her sprawling bulk aloft, and tried to throw herself upon the
slayer. The bear nimbly avoided the shock, and whirled round to see
where her cub was. Blinking at the light and dazed by the sudden uproar,
but full of curiosity, he was just crawling up out of the ruins of the
snowhouse. His mother dragged him forth by the scruff of the neck, and
with a heave of one paw sent him rolling over and over along the snow, a
dozen paces out of danger. At the same time something in her savage
growls conveyed to him a first lesson in that wholesome fear which it is
so well for the children of the wild to learn early. As he pulled
himself together and picked himself up he was still full of curiosity,
but at the same time he realized the absolute necessity for keeping out
of the way of something, whatever it was.

"He soon saw what it was. At the cry of the bereaved mother the two
great walrus bulls had turned. Now, with curious, choked roars, which
seemed to tear their way with difficulty out of their deep chests, they
came floundering back to the rescue. The cub, a sure instinct asserting
itself at once, looked behind him to see that the path of escape was
clear. Then he sat up on his haunches, his twinkling little eyes
shifting back and forth between those mighty oncoming bulks and the long,
gaunt, white form of his mother.

"For perhaps half a minute the old bear stood her ground, dodging the
clumsy but terrific onslaughts of the cow, and dealing her two or three
buffets which would have smashed in the skeleton of any creature less