Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/225

Rh sick and trembling. The "buck ague" he had felt when, in Maine, he had sighted his first big game was nothing to the weakness that assailed him now as he made certain of seeing a large animal and watched it come on.

Both Latham and Michaelis happened to be within hearing, but he was afraid yet to cry a warning lest, after all their weeks of nothing, his eyes were tricking him and the object far away over the ice was only an hallucination. Then he called and pointed it out.

The others saw it too. It was very far away and indistinct in the moonlight; but they saw it climb up over a ridge of ice and slip down. It disappeared behind a hummock; and as Geoff stared he was beginning to believe that after all his eyes had tricked him when it clambered up and showed itself again. Instantly the three men hid. The animal was up the wind, so no scent from them could betray them. It was coming toward them and they crept cautiously to meet it.

"A bear!" Latham now confirmed Geoff's recognition.

"Bear!" repeated Brunton, almost in awe.