"Why, yes, I am reminded," replied Mr. Adams. "I had entirely forgotten our prize passenger. Yes, Mr. Captain, perhaps we have lost a bear. What's your item?"
"Fust," said Captain Perkins, "let me ax you a question or two. Did your ship strike another ship, or a berg, or something, and flounder in latitude fifty degrees, eighteen minutes and forty seconds, and longitude fifty degrees and ten minutes or thereabouts?"
"That was just about where we were when we struck," said the captain of the unfortunate Spray, "I believe that was the S.O.S. I sent out."
"Good!" cried Captain Perkins. "For once my Eben's plaything has done some one some good.
"You see my boy Eben is a dabster at wireless an' when we came off on this here voyage, he said as how he wanted to rig up a wireless. So I said, 'Go ahead. I guess it won't do any harm.' Well, last night he said as how the stuff was aflyin' around pretty thick an' as how he wanted to set up for a spell an' see what he could hear. So he happened to be a listinin' in, as he calls it, when you hollered for help. An' by jimmerny crickets! he managed to get your position just right. We was only a few miles to the south, so we headed straight for your call. When we got there, as near as we could calculate, we didn't see a durn thing, but just a great sort of pig pen cage floating about with a gol-darned great polar bear aswimmin' about inside it. It had only sunk about two feet in the water, and he was standin' inside the cage as prompt as you please, headed directly for the United States."
"O, O," cried Oumauk. "Whitie is drowned. I know he is; Whitie is drowned."
"Ef Whitie is what you call that great brute, he ain't drowned by a jugful. But he did get a good wetting. You see, men, it came about this way."
"My mate, Hank Jones, is allus a-dasting me to do suthing out of the ordinary. He is allus makin' fun of my mechanics. You see, I am a mechanical genius. So when Hank saw this bear, he dasted me to rig a pulley and pull him on board, cage and all. An' I tuck Hank's dast and had him aboard in about fifteen minutes. He is as high and dry as a salt codfish this very minute, there in the stern of the Three Bells."