The White Czar: A Story of a Polar Bear

by Clarence Hawkes

When the White Czar found himself transferred from the plank cage in which he had lived upon shipboard to the permanent den at the park, he was better suited than he had been in the cage.

The den was much more commodious, and it had the additional advantage of containing a swimming pool. After three or four days he enjoyed the pool greatly. But his attitude towards it at first had been very strange. He would lie upon his rock platform and look at the water for hours. Finally he reached down very carefully with his great white paw and touched it. Then he thrust his arm in to the shoulder. Even then he did not venture into the water until he had tested it by degrees. The truth was he was thinking of his last terrible experience in the water when the rope had been thrown about his neck, and he had been dragged so mercilessly after the motor boat. Also his experience floating about in the cage on the Atlantic had tended to make him suspicious of water. Water in which he had always so revelled.

Finally however he was playing about in his pool and disporting himself on the rocky shelf in his den with a playfulness that was almost grotesque in so large an animal.

But it must not be imagined that the White Czar was satisfied with his lot, or that he was contented to settle down for the rest of his life in this twenty-five by twelve den. Not he.

He remembered too well the freedom of the broad icefloe and the low lying barrens along the coast. He had seen too much of the sparkling, tingling Arctic Ocean to ever rest in a stifling prison like this.

He simply made the best of his hard conditions and bided his time. Few wild animals which have been captured when full grown, as was the White Czar, ever become used to confinement. They may look very tame and well content. But behind this seeming content and docility is a terrible rage and hidden fire that will some day break out and cost some one his life, or else the escape of the wild creature at the first possible moment.

The White Czar was a great favorite with the children who swarmed each day about his den to watch him playing in his pool or stretching his great muscles on the rocks. No matter how small the cage of a wild animal is, he always takes the proper amount of exercise each day by stretching himself. So it was with the Czar. If he ever got a chance to run for his life and his freedom, his muscles must not be stiff.

The visit of Oumauk and Eiseeyou to the den each day was a great comfort to the bear. He learned to time their coming, so that he would always be standing at the bars watching for them when they arrived. But his affection was all for Oumauk. Eiseeyou he had viewed with a suspicion ever since the day when he had sat in the stern of the motor boat and watched the cruel rope almost choke the life out of him. He did not fully connect his capture with the Eskimo, but in a dim sort of way he imagined that he was a party to it.