“As soon as we were within shot, the first luff kneels down, and taking aim, fired his double rifle right and left at the two great brutes that stood growling over poor Bill Barker.
“‘Stand firm, men,’ he says, then ‘prepare to charge.’ And then we five stood with our guns and bayonets ready for the brutes as began to come down upon us, while the luff got behind us, and began to load. You see he wouldn’t let us fire on account of poor Bill, and I s’pose he had more trust in his own gun than in ours, for he kept on fumbling away in the cold till he was loaded, which was when the brutes were only about a dozen yards off, when he drops on one knee aside me, and taking a good long aim fired when one brute was only five or six yards off—both barrels right into him, and rolled him over and over, just as he would have done a rabbit. But the next moment it was helter-skelter, and hooraying, for t’other bear was down on us with a rush, taking no more notice of our bayonets than if they had been so many toothpicks, and downing two of our chaps like nine-pins.
“‘Be firm, men,’ shouts the luff, and we three ran at the great brute that stood growling over our two mates, and I don’t know about what t’others did, but at one and the same moment, I drove the bayonet up to the gun muzzle right in the bear’s flank, and fired as well. Then it seemed that the gun was wrenched out of my hand, and I saw the great brute rear up above me, fetch me a pat with one of its paws, when I caught a glimpse of the luff and heard the sharp ring of his rifle again, and then I seemed to be smothered, for the great beast fell right upon me.
“I don’t know how long it was before they got help from the ship, and the great brute dragged off me; but I know that the next thing I remember is being carried into the ship through the doorway, and hearing some one say, that Bill Barker was frozen stiff and cold. But I soon came to, and excepting the bruises, there was nothing worse the matter than a broken rib, which I soon got the better of. But poor Bill was dead and frozen hard when they got him aboard, with his gun tight fixed in his hand, so that they could not get it away for some time; for though the poor chap knew all the orders well enough about going out without proper preparations, like many more of us, he couldn’t believe as the frost would have such power—power enough to cut him down before he’d walked a couple hundred yards, for it was something awful that night, though the little brawny chaps that live in those parts, seem to bear it very well.
“Freeze! why this is nothing: them two bears were masses of ice next morning when they hauled ’em on board, while everything we cut, had to be thawed first before the stove-fires. But then we had plenty of provisions, and I don’t think I once saw the grog get down so low, as in this here glass of mine—here present.”
My father took the hint, and replenished the old sailor’s glass.