Page:The white czar; a story of a polar bear (IA whiteczarstoryof00hawk).pdf/123

 made safe and in two or three hours the entire village was on the march.

When they had come northward, Whitie had been a timid, playful cub, but now he was several times larger than he had been then, and rather boisterous. He could hold his own with any of the dogs in battle, and he had acquired much independence. But little Oumauk could do anything with him. A month or so before they left Eskimo Village Oumauk had learned to ride on Whitie's back, so the bear now carried his little master for the better part of the long one hundred-mile march.

But once they were back in the igloo, Oumauk's mother protested against having so large a bear as Whitie had become in the igloo all the time; so he slept much of the time in a deserted igloo nearby. Even now he was beginning to suggest what a monster he would be when he should attain the stature and weight of a full-grown polar bear.