“Just at this particular moment a little herd of walrus—­two old bulls and four cows with their fat, oily-looking calves—­came sprawling, floundering and grunting by.  They were quite out of place on land, of course, but for some reason known only to themselves they were crossing over the narrow neck of low ground from another bay, half a mile away.  Perhaps the ice pack had been jammed in by wind and current on that side, filling the shallow bay to the bottom and cutting the walrus off from their feeding grounds.  If not that, then it was some other equally urgent reason, or the massive beasts, who can move on land only by a series of violent and exhausting flops, would never have undertaken an enterprise so formidable as a half-mile overland journey.  They were accomplishing it, however, with a vast deal of groaning and wheezing and deep-throated grunting, when they arrived at the end of the crevice wherein the snowhouse baby and his mother were concealed.

“Lifting their huge, whiskered and tusked heads, and plunging forward laboriously on their awkward nippers, the two old bulls went by, followed by the ponderous cows with their lumpy, rolling calves.  The hindermost cow, a few feet to the right of the herd, came so close to the end of the crevice that the edge of the snow gave way and her left nipper slipped into it, throwing her forward upon her side.  As she struggled to recover herself, close beside her the snow was heaved up, and a terrible, grinning white head emerged, followed by gigantic shoulders and huge, claw-armed, battling paws.

“This sudden and dreadful apparition startled the walrus cow into new vigor, so that with a convulsive plunge she tore herself free of the pitfall.  For a couple of seconds the old bear towered above her, with sagacious eyes taking in the whole situation.  Then, judiciously ignoring the mother, she sprang over her, treading her down into the snow, fell upon the fat calf, and with one tremendous buffet broke its neck.

“With a hoarse roar of grief and fury the cow wheeled upon her haunches, reared her sprawling bulk aloft, and tried to throw herself upon the slayer.  The bear nimbly avoided the shock, and whirled round to see where her cub was.  Blinking at the light and dazed by the sudden uproar, but full of curiosity, he was just crawling up out of the ruins of the snowhouse.  His mother dragged him forth by the scruff of the neck, and with a heave of one paw sent him rolling over and over along the snow, a dozen paces out of danger.  At the same time something in her savage growls conveyed to him a first lesson in that wholesome fear which it is so well for the children of the wild to learn early.  As he pulled himself together and picked himself up he was still full of curiosity, but at the same time he realized the absolute necessity for keeping out of the way of something, whatever it was.