Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/69

 grey, sun-warmed ledges of the beach instead of on the ice. With her half-grown calf floundering anxiously at her side, she slipped off the floe, and with gusty snortings worked her way some twenty or thirty paces up the shore till she gained a flat ledge which was precisely to her liking. Settling herself complacently,—for never before had she experienced so warm a couch,—she turned and called to the calf, which, finding the rocks uncomfortable to travel over, had dropped a few yards behind. The fat and flabby youngster squealed protestingly, as if to say he was coming as fast as he could; and then, seized with sudden fear of the strange element upon which he found himself, he stopped, and looked back longingly at the safe water and the familiar ice.

At this moment, from behind the nearest shoulder of rock a huge white shape burst forth, launched itself, with a clatter of iron claws on ledge and gravel, across the open, and fell upon the unhappy calf. One blow of the terrific mailed paw (which looked so furry soft) smashed the youngster's neck, and it collapsed, quivering like an enormous mass of dark-brown jelly. In the same second the bear seized it by the head and with frantic haste started to drag the prize away to some safe refuge among the rocks—for well he knew the devotion and the blind fury of the walrus mother.