Meanwhile the old hunter had seized the steering sweep and endeavored to turn the sled aside. It had rebounded from the heavy carcass of the bear which had dropped upon the ice before it. Now Andy tried to work the sled around this obstruction.
The second sled came; on, the professor relieving Roebach at the helm, and the oil man and Washington White pouring in volley after volley at the bears. The black man was a good shot and in the excitement of the battle he forgot to be terrified. His bullets told as well as did those from the rifle of Phineas Roebach.
And fortunately the aged scientist brought this second sled safely through the line of bears. The first sled took the brunt of the battle. When that on which the professor sailed was a hundred yards beyond the herd of Kodiaks, he swerved it into the eye of the wind and so brought it to a halt without lowering the blanket that served as a sail. "Come on back and help' em!" cried Phineas Roebach, leaping out upon the ice.
He started back toward the fight, firing as he went. Wash followed more cautiously; and when one wounded beast started on a lumbering gallop in his direction, the colored man uttered a frightened shriek and legged it back to the professor.
Fortunately just about then the sled on which the boys and old Andy fought, came through the ruck of the struggle. Andy hacked with a hatchet the paws from the last Kodiak that tried to seize the sled, and the two boys continued to pour bullets into the howling, roaring pack.
They took Phineas aboard the slowly moving sled and so reached the professor and Wash. Immediately that sled was put in motion and the party traveled a full mile before they dared halt and take stock of the damage done.
The bears had given up the pursuit. The ice for yards around had been crimsoned by the blood of the huge beasts. They could count, even at that distance, ten dead ones, and many would die of their wounds.
"And we didn't get even a slice of bear steak to pay us for it all!" groaned Jack.
"Wrong," returned Andy Sudds, proudly, and he held up the two paws he had severed from the last brute. "Those will give us all a taste of fricassee—and that same dish will be a welcome one, I declare."
They were not again molested by bears; but looking back when they had traveled on some distance farther (the river being straight in this place) they saw a huge pack of wolves gathering on the ice—more than two hundred at least of the savage brutes—and believed that a battle royal was in progress between the remaining Kodiaks and the wolves.