Page:The white czar; a story of a polar bear (IA whiteczarstoryof00hawk).pdf/168

 sinking ship. But another wave caught the cage before the ship finally floundered and carried it still further away. Then the ship sank and the only object of the entire expedition that was left in sight was the great bear, floating knee deep in the cold water in his wooden cage.

When the Czar first felt the icy water on his shaggy legs he was glad. A sense of life and freedom thrilled him.

This freezing water was his native element. True he was still surrounded by this hateful cage, which narrowed his world down to twelve feet in one direction and eight in the other, but he felt certain that it would float away. The waters which had always befriended him would help him. Then he remembered with a shudder his last experience in the water—the men and the motor boat and the rope that had nearly strangled him, and the courage in his great stout heart wavered. Perhaps he was not going to escape after all.

The bottom of his cage had been made perfectly tight, so that it now acted as a raft. The water was two feet deep in the