But when March came, Mrs. Bruin began to grow hungry, and think that it was full time to scramble out of her under-snow den, and look out for some fish, or a fat young seal, to eat for her breakfast. The weather was still most fearfully cold, and the red sun seemed to have no power at all, save to light up an endless waste of snow, in which not a tree was to be seen save here and there a stunted fir, half crusted over with ice.
Safe, however, and pretty warm in their shaggy furs, over the dreary wilds walked Mrs. Bruin, and the young bears trotting at her heels. They went along for some time, when they came to a round swelling in the snow; at least so a little hut appeared to the eyes of a bear. Indeed, had our own eyes looked on that snow-covered hillock, we should scarcely at first have guessed that it was a human dwelling.
Perhaps some scent of food came up from the chimney-hole, which made Mrs. Bruin think about breakfast, for she went close up to the hut, then trotted around it—her rough white nose in the air. She then uttered a low short growl, which made her cubs amble up to her side.
Oh, with what terror the sound of that growl filled the heart of poor Anneetah, the Esquimaux woman, who was with her little children crouching together for warmth in that hut!
"Did you hear that noise?" exclaimed Aleekan, the eldest boy, stopping suddenly in the midst of a tale which he had been telling.
"There's a bear outside!" cried all the younger children at once.
Anneetah rose, and hastily strengthened the fastenings of her rude door with a thick piece of rope, while her children breathlessly listened to catch again the sound which had filled them with fear.
"The bear is climbing up outside!" cried little Vraga, clinging in terror to her mother. "I can hear the scraping of its claws!"
There was an anxious pause for several minutes, all listening too intently to break the silence by even a word. Then, to the great alarm of the Esquimaux, the white head of an Arctic bear could be plainly seen, looking down upon them from above. The animal had, after clambering up to the top of the hut, enlarged the hole which had been left in the roof to let out the smoke.
"We're lost!" exclaimed Aneekah.