"For Heaven's sake, stop!"
"The Doctor! the Doctor!" cried Johnson.
And the Doctor it actually was who had tumbled in among them in such undignified fashion.
"How do ye do, good friends?" he said, picking himself smartly up.
His companions stood stupefied for a moment, but joy soon loosened their tongues, and each rushed eagerly forward to welcome his old comrade with a loving embrace. Hatteras was for once fairly overcome with emotion, and positively hugged him like a child.
"And is it really you, Mr. Clawbonny?" said Johnson.
"Myself and nobody else, my old fellow. I assure you I have been far more uneasy about you than you could have been about me."
"But how did you know we had been attacked by a troop of bears?" asked Altamont. "What we were most afraid of was that you would come quickly back to Fort Providence, never dreaming of danger."
"Oh, I saw it all. Your repeated shots gave me the alarm. When you commenced firing I was beside the wreck of the Porpoise, but I climbed up a hummock, and discovered five bears close on your heels. Oh, how anxious I was for you! But when I saw you disappear down the cliff, while the bears stood hesitating on the edge, as if uncertain what to do, I felt sure that you had managed to get safely inside the house and barricade it. I crept cautiously nearer, sometimes going on all-fours, sometimes slipping between great blocks of ice, till I came at last quite close to our fort, and then I found the bears working away like beavers. They were prowling about the snow, and dragging enormous blocks of ice towards the house, piling them up like a wall, evidently intending to bury you alive. It is a lucky thing they did not take it into their heads to dash down the blocks from the summit of the cone, for you must have been crushed inevitably."
"But what danger you were in, Mr. Clawbonny," said Bell. "Any moment they might have turned round and attacked you."