In the Land of the Great Snow Bear Part 15

Paddy called it "football." Well, it was "Irish football," for the only man in the ship who could kick the thing a yard was gigantic Byarnie.

"It was as large as the biggest pumpkin ever you saw, and quite as big as the largest," so said Paddy. You had to throw it to begin with, and when you got it you had to run with it, and you did not run many yards before you fell with half a dozen on top of you. But the cream of the game lay in the fact that, however much light there might be, before you had played many minutes you could not tell who was your opponent and who not, everybody being as white as the dustiest of millers. When you were struggling for the ball, it was just as likely as not that you were trying to trip up a friend Besides, often when you got it, and could have a fair shy, then, as you could not see well, what with the uncertain light, and what with the powdery snow, you perhaps threw it the wrong way. It was a rare game, and oh! did it not make you hungry!

No wonder that on returning on board you could eat a hot supper with all the appet.i.te of a Highland drover.

"Paddy," said Dr Barrett once, as he patted him on the back, "you're a genius!"

"Thrue for you, sorr," says Paddy, "and it's just that same me mother towld me. 'Paddy,' says she, 'you're a born ganious, and there ain't the likes o' ye 'twixt Killarney and Cork.'"

Note 1. The shoulder of the seal is the bear's favourite t.i.t-bit, and I have seldom seen him eat more of Miss Phoca, when sport was good and provisions (seal) plentiful--G.S.

Note 2. There are winters _and_ winters in Greenland. Sometimes for two or even three months together the darkness is deep and depressing, the whole country shrouded in a night that seems never-ending.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

PADDY'S ADVENTURE WITH THE BEAR--FUN ON THE ICE--THE LITTLE PURPLE CLOUD.

Tobogganing? A strange word, is it not? We are indebted to the Americans for it, as we are for many other handy, but hardly elegant, additions to our vocabulary. Those who are fond of hunting for the origins of words, and who cannot live happily unless they find out how _this_ is _that_, tell us that the sport--and fine fun it is--was first suggested to mankind by the beavers. They say that these busy-brained active animals, by way of keeping their blood-heat up in winter-time, go in a crowd to some snow-clad hill, scurry up to the top of it with their broad flat tails behind them, and go sliding down all in a row, rushing up again as soon as they find themselves at the bottom, and joining the other end of the procession, and that they keep "the pot arboiling" for hours with the highest glee imaginable. Well, perhaps the beavers do, but in one form or other the sport is as old, probably, as the days of Noah.

Canada is perhaps the home of tobogganing, for there the frost is severe and lasts long. Now, the scenery all round the "Sea of Dunallan," for thus had the waters in which our heroes lay been named by them, was very wild indeed. The hills close beside the beach were high and rounded; beyond these they were higher still, many of them rising into peaks that seemed to have their homes among the stars.

It occurred to Paddy O'Connell, who seemed to be the inventive genius of the crew, and foremost wherever fun was to be had, that a species of tobogganing might be got up from which some "rale diversion" could be had.

So one fine moonlight night, with the stars all shining as well as they could, for the tails and ribbons of brilliant aurora that were hanging in the sky, Paddy went prospecting.

"Shall I come with you, Paddy?" said Byarnie, who was the best of friends with the "Oirlander."

"Not to-night, me bhoy," replied Paddy. "It's after a bit av diversion I'm going, and I think best when I'm all alone by me swate little self."

"Well, you might take a gun with you," suggested Byarnie, "for there may be bears about, you know."

"Bad cess to them. No. There's never a fear of Paddy."

Byarnie watched him disappear round the brow of a high knoll, about a quarter of a mile from the _Icebear_; then went quietly below.

The weather had been fine for weeks, and no snow had fallen. It was just the season when the sun might soon be expected. Already, indeed, there was twilight at noon, so all hearts were gay and hopeful.

Paddy was in search of a hill, and he was very particular as to both its shape, its height, and its condition. At last his prospecting cruise was crowned with success.

"C'dn't have been better," said Paddy, talking to himself, half aloud, as he had a habit of doing; "c'dn't have been better if me own mother had made it."

The one drawback was that it was fully a mile and a half from the ship; but, after all, that was a small matter. So Paddy started to go back.

It had been tedious work, and hours of it, and, feeling tired, he began to think of his pipe. To think was to act with this son of Green Erin.

He stuck his alpenstock in the snow, and forthwith scratched a match and lit up.

"That's comforting, anyhow," he said, after a few whiffs. "Now, if I could only find a stone to sit upon. Troth, I might as well look for a stone in the midst av the say, or the big bay of Tralore, as--Hullo!

what's yonder, anyhow?"

Paddy was on the bare brow of a steep hill; but on rounding a hummock and looking back, he found one side of it was dark and free from snow.

He returned, and gave the darkness a poke with his stick, and the stick struck--nothing. It was the entrance to a cave.

"I'll just light a match and have a look," says Paddy.

The feeble glimmer revealed only a portion of what seemed a great vault.

"I'll creep in for a moment, out av the cowld," says Paddy, "and stand in a corner; sure there can't be any crayture worse than meself in the cave."

It was an eerisome situation enough, but our gallant Irishman did not mind it a bit.

For fully five minutes he smoked, when he thought, or fancied he thought, he heard a sigh.

"It's draining I am entoirely; who could be there; at all?"

Presently the sigh--a heavy, long-drawn one--was repeated. There could be no mistake about it this time.

"Ghost of Saint Patrick!" thinks Paddy; "is it in the cave av an evil spirit I am? But never moind, it's sleeping he is, anyhow. I'll have a look, and chance it."

Taking half a dozen hearty puffs to give him courage, Paddy quietly advanced. He had not gone three paces when--behold, curled up at his feet, a gigantic yellow bear!

"Is it there you are, me darlint?" Paddy whispers to himself. "But troth, I just remember it's toime I was going, so good night, me dear, and bad drames to ye."

Now Bruin has excellent scent, and Paddy's tobacco was good and strong, so no wonder he awoke. He rose to his forepaws, opening a great red mouth that would have sheltered a coal-scuttle, and giving vent as he did so to a yawning roar that appeared to shake the very cave.

Paddy threw the almost extinct match into the gulf and fled, with Bruin at his heels.

Byarnie was very fond of Paddy O'Connell, and when his friend stayed so long away, naturally grew anxious, and finally started off to look for him. He would not take a rifle, "because," he argued, "if Paddy wasn't afraid, sure I'm not." But he armed himself with that most deadly weapon, a seal club, and away he strode. On and on went the giant over the snowy hills; but Paddy's track, that he tried for a time to follow, was as devious as a rabbit's. When he was just about to give up in despair, who should he see but his friend himself coming round the brow of the hill--it could be n.o.body else.

But when Paddy disappeared suddenly from view as effectually as if he had sunk into the bowels of the earth, then no wonder big Byarnie rubbed his eyes and stared in astonishment.

Byarnie was superst.i.tious.

"'Twas his ghost," he thought; "poor Paddy is dead, and that was his spirit!"

And down there on his knees, under the flickering aurora, knelt big Byarnie to pray. While thus devotionally engaged, he was startled by a roar that made him feel as if the earth was going to open and swallow him, and yonder behold poor Paddy running towards him more quickly than he had ever run before, and followed by something large and yellow.

Byarnie spat on his hands, and threw away his cap.

Well, I do not wonder, mind you, at Bruin's wrath. How would any one like to be wakened from sweet dreamland, and have the fiery end of a lucifer match pitched down his throat?

"Come on, Paddy," roared Byarnie.

"Sure ain't I coming as fast as I can?" cried poor innocent Paddy.

As the bear went floundering past, Byarnie struck at him with terrible force.

The steel point of the club entered his neck, but held there, and both Byarnie and Bruin rolled together on the ground, the former undermost, and the blood flew spattering over the snow.