When the hunters came up, the little one apparently had recovered its strength a little, for it was able to turn round with its dam, however quickly she moved, so as always to keep in front of her belly. Meantime the dogs were actively jumping about the she-bear, tormenting her like so many gadflies; indeed, it was difficult to fire at her without running the risk of killing the dogs. But Hans, one of the hunters, resting on his elbow, took a quiet, steady aim, and shot her through the head. She dropped at once, and rolled over dead, without moving a muscle.
Immediately the dogs sprang towards her; but the cub jumped upon her body and reared up, for the first time growling hoarsely. They seemed quite afraid of the little creature, she fought so actively, and made so much noise; and, while tearing mouthfuls of hair from the dead mother, they would spring aside the minute the cub turned towards them. The men drove the dogs off for a time, but were compelled to shoot the cub at last, as she would not quit the body.
A still more stirring episode is recorded by Dr. Kane, which will fitly conclude our account of the Polar bear.
“Nannook! nannook!” (A bear! a bear!) With this welcome shout, Hans and Morton, two of his attendants, roused Dr. Kane one fine Saturday morning.
To the scandal of his domestic regulations, the guns were all impracticable. While the men were loading and capping anew, Dr. Kane seized his pillow-companion six-shooter, and ran on deck, to discover a medium-sized bear, with a four-months’ cub, in active warfare with the dogs. They were hanging on her skirts, and she, with remarkable alertness, was picking out one victim after another, snatching him by the nape of the neck, and flinging him many feet, or rather yards, by a scarcely perceptible movement of her head.
Tudea, the best dog, was already hors de combat; he had been tossed twice. Jenny, another of the pack, made an extraordinary somerset of nearly fifty feet, and alighted senseless. Old Whitey, a veteran combatant, stanch, but not “bear-wise,” had been foremost in the battle; soon he lay yelping, helplessly, on the snow.
It seemed as if the battle were at an end; and nannook certainly thought so, for she turned aside to the beef-barrels, and began with the utmost composure to turn them over, and nose out their fatness. A bear more innocent of fear does not figure in the old, old stories of Barents and the Spitzbergen explorers.
Dr. Kane now lodged a pistol-ball in the side of the cub. At once the mother placed her little one between her hind legs, and, shoving it along, made her way to the rear of the store or “beef-house.” As she went she received a rifle-shot, but scarcely seemed to notice it. By the unaided efforts of her fore arms she tore down the barrels of frozen beef which made the triple walls of the store-house, mounted the rubbish, and snatching up a half barrel of herrings, carried it down in her teeth, and prepared to slip away. It was obviously time to arrest her movements. Going up within half pistol-range, Dr. Kane gave her six buck-shot. She dropped, but instantly rose, and getting her cub into its former position, away she sped!
And this time she would undoubtedly have effected her escape, but for the admirable tactics of Dr. Kane’s canine Eskimo allies. The Smith Sound dogs, he says, are educated more thoroughly than any of their more southern brethren. Next to the seal and the walrus, the bear supplies the staple diet of the tribes of the North, and, except the fox, furnishes the most important element of their wardrobe. Unlike the dogs Dr. Kane had brought with him from Baffin Bay, the Smith Sound dogs were trained, not to attack, but to embarrass. They revolved in circles round the perplexed bear, and when pursued would keep ahead with regulated gait, their comrades accomplishing a diversion at the critical moment by a nip at the nannook’s hind-quarters. This was done in the most systematic manner possible, and with a truly wonderful composure. “I have seen bear-dogs elsewhere,” says Dr. Kane, “that had been drilled to relieve each other in the mêlée, and avoid the direct assault; but here, two dogs, without even a demonstration of attack, would put themselves before the path of the animal, and retreating right and left, lead him into a profitless pursuit that checked his advance completely.”