Mrs. Bear stood truly at bay. One man, more courageous than the rest, came running up with his pointed spear, ready to take aim. A terrific noise arrested him—a noise in which all else was nothing. The land seemed to reel and topple; the great ice shelves came crashing down.
Men and dogs ran for their lives; and to save themselves they plunged bodily into the sea. For the whole point of ice had broken from the mainland and, like a ship that is rocking and righting itself, it was sending up mighty waves and eddies on every side.
The motions were less gigantic after a while, and the new iceberg had found itself. Already it was moving forward, and the wind was driving it foot by foot into the outgoing tide.
Mrs. Bear knew precisely what to do. Twice in her life she had traveled on ice floes, though never on so large a one as this.
"Here we are, and here we stay," she said. "By and by we'll come to islands, or so close to shore that we can swim back to land. It will be a long time before we are carried out beyond this gulf, and we're sure to escape before then."
She was a little too cheerful, perhaps, for some of her own kin had gone that way so far into the great southerly current that they were never seen again. But Mrs. Bear was one of those happy beings who always look for the best, not the worst; and she was too joyous over this sudden deliverance to heed any new perplexity.
Long weeks afterward, when Mother Bear's wounds were healed, and Odin and Olga had indeed learned how to live by diving and hunting under water, they came to a narrow bay where the land was green on both sides. The distance from their iceberg was but little; and they plunged in, while Mr. Burgomaster circled over them excitedly. He was a wonderful mariner, Mr. Burgomaster, and, being such a good friend, he had flown back and forth over land and sea, following them on their icy ship.
"You'll know where you are, Mrs. Bear, when this fog lifts," he said. "You will find that you have come to a beautiful shore where there are berries and all kinds of refreshing things that bears like. It was a good day that the iceberg started you on your trip."
"All things, Mr. Burgomaster," said wonderful Mother Bear, as she crawled out of the water and shook her shaggy fur, "all things happen for the best!"
THE END