Six Sardanians made up the hunting-party, of whom two were Kard the Smith and Morolas, one of the tall brothers of Helicon. All were armed with spears tipped with ilium blades, axes, and daggers, and they drove with them a four-pony sledge, with which to take home their game.
Much as Polaris would have liked to take with him the seven dogs, he did not, for he dared not risk the lives of the animals in the fierce sport. With the death of his dogs would die also his last chances of winning back on the way to the North.
Some hours along the snow-path they discovered the first signs of the game which they sought, the white bear. The sledge was halted and the ponies outspanned. One of the Sardanian hunters was left to keep the camp, and the rest of the party set out on the fresh trail.
Less than a mile away across the snow hummocks they came in sight of their quarry, a magnificent specimen of the king of the pole lands, sleek and fat and powerful from the good feeding he had found in the temperate vicinity of the smoky hills.
"There is the bear. Now, stranger of the snows, how dost thou take him?" said Morolas. "I understand that thou hast taken many of his kind single-handed—unless indeed that necklace of thine was plucked from dead bones."
Paying no attention whatever to the open sneer in the words of the prince, Polaris made his preparation. He was too much pleased with the prospect of the action before him to be nettled by the peevishness of the Sardanian prince. Smilingly he loosened the long knife in his belt, took a firm grip of his spear, one of his own steel-bladed shafts, and crept forward across the snows where the monster awaited the coming of the foe.
For the bear had seen them, and paused, grumbling and sniffing, to discover if these new animals might not be worth his trouble as a meal.
Plenty of temper had that bear. Before the man was within thirty feet of him he stopped the slow swaying of his massive head, emitted a snarling roar, and charged. Polaris stood at the dip of a slope in the snow, alert and watchful for his chance to leap and thrust.
As the avalanche of angry bear dashed down the incline its claws slipped on an icy crusting, and it rolled, folding its head in almost to its belly, like a huge snowball, scratching furiously at the snow crust to stop itself and regain its footing.