Finally one cold morning when Oumauk arose and looked out of doors, he saw that the ground was white with snow. There was but two or three inches, yet it would serve the purpose for the sledges. So after breakfast the cloth tents and the Eskimos' belongings were packed. The supply of fish and eider ducks' meat and eggs was made safe and in two or three hours the entire village was on the march.
When they had come northward, Whitie had been a timid, playful cub, but now he was several times larger than he had been then, and rather boisterous. He could hold his own with any of the dogs in battle, and he had acquired much independence. But little Oumauk could do anything with him. A month or so before they left Eskimo Village Oumauk had learned to ride on Whitie's back, so the bear now carried his little master for the better part of the long one hundred-mile march.
But once they were back in the igloo, Oumauk's mother protested against having so large a bear as Whitie had become in the igloo all the time; so he slept much of the time in a deserted igloo nearby. Even now he was beginning to suggest what a monster he would be when he should attain the stature and weight of a full grown polar bear.
CHAPTER IX
THE WHITE CZAR
The transition of Whitie to the White Czar took several years, and it was a most interesting period for both little Oumauk and the young bear. That first winter after their return from Eskimo Village there was continual friction between Oumauk and his mother as to how much the bear should be allowed in the igloo. When he had been a small cub weighing only eight or ten pounds, that was one thing; but when he had become a rather mischievous and boisterous yearling as large as a good-sized dog, that was quite another.
Besides, Whitie was destructive. The things that he did not get into were much fewer than those he did. But little Oumauk defended him in all his mischief and was nearly heartbroken if any one so much as hinted that Whitie was not perfect. Even when he tore Oumauk's new parka to ribbons, his young master was for excusing him.