Page:The white czar; a story of a polar bear (IA whiteczarstoryof00hawk).pdf/150

 break his heart. It already ached enough.

So the ship's carpenter set to work the following day making a cage for the White Czar. The frame was made of three by six timbers and the rest of the cage was two inch plank. Eiseeyou shook his head and said it was rather frail to hold him, for he knew the great bear's strength better than the white men. So they bolted it at all the corners and bound it with iron straps, which would stiffen it without making it too heavy. Finally it was all ready, and with a heavy heart Eiseeyou set forth with four white men in a motor boat to betray the White Czar into the clutch of civilization—that great strong hand which reaches forth to the ends of the earth and grasps so many beautiful and wonderful things, only to kill both their beauty and life at last.

They found the white bear upon a small island eating a seal pup. But when one of their number landed he at once took to the water in an attempt to swim to another island nearer the mainland. That was just what the men wanted.