off his bear-skin just as though it were a coat, and there he was,
nothing more nor less than a merman who had been dressed up in an old
skin, pretending to be a bear cub.

Sprawley and all the other mermen dived off into the water and began
splashing and shrieking and pulling at each other and getting farther
and farther away.

"All the same, I don't think you'll float me off," said Teddy to
himself.

Very quietly he crept to where the bear-skin lay on the ice, and taking
out his knife he cut a long slit up the back of it. Then not waiting for
the mermen to come back he hurried home again over the ice to the bears'
cave, and crawling in he laid himself down again between the sleeping
cubs.

The little bears were beginning to stir themselves and the Mother Bear
was yawning and stretching when Sprawley came sneaking into the cave
again.

"Why! why!" said the Mother Bear, "where have you been?"

"I ain't been anywhere," said Sprawley. "I just thought I heard a
sea-lion roaring and I went out to see."

"Well, there's no use your going to sleep again," said the Father Bear,
"for we have to go a long ways to-day, and it's time we were getting
ready to start now."