The consternation of the mistress and her pupils
was very great, of course. But what could they do? Nothing but look on,
and see what would come of this strange visit. However, the bear
molested no one. It walked quietly up to the fire, and warmed itself.
Then it walked up to the wall, where the dinner baskets hung, and
standing on its hind feet, reached them down, and made free with their
contents. By and by, it went out. But the alarm was given, and the poor
fellow was shot, when it was found out, by some marks on its body, that
it was the identical bear that had used to visit the school four years
before.
In one of the expeditions from England to the Polar seas, a white bear
was seen to perform an ingenious feat in order to capture some walruses.
He was seen to swim cautiously to a large, rough piece of ice, on which
these walruses were lying, fast asleep, with their cubs. The wily animal
crept up some little hillocks of ice, behind the party, and with his
fore feet loosened a large block of ice. This, with the help of his nose
and paws, he rolled along until he was near the sleepers, and almost
over their heads, when he let it fall on one of the old walruses, who
was instantly killed. The other walrus, with her cubs, rolled into the
water; but the young one of the dead animal remained with its mother. On
this helpless creature the bear then leaped down, and completed the
destruction of two animals which it would not have ventured to attack
openly.
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