Evening star., 1922-10-29

was no time to be lost. Whitehouse
took one look and yelled, Come on.
Abb" With wild leaps over the rocks
they ran for their guns. which they
reached preathless and very much
excited. Whitehouse grabbed his au-
tomato snotgun and hastily rammed
in bail cartridge which stuck In
the breach. Whereupon he shouted.
Give 1t to him, Abram"
Abrams cnly weapon was a .22,
hardly large enough for big game.
He took careful aim. however. and
pulled the trigger. The bear con-
tinued directly and rapidly toward
them, as shown by the water foaming
around his neck.
Abram came to the immediate con-
clusion that they would have trou-
BILE with him." IF he only had him
treferring to his .45) he knowed he
could stop him."
He fired again and this time struck
him right In the pole (head." But
still the bear continued his course.
Would they run or stand their
ground? One more shot from the .22.
Abram saw the bullet glance from
tho head and strike tho surface Of
the water beyond. Then suddenly the
bears head changed to the likeness
Of a white rock, which in fact 1t was.
with the rapid fall of the tide this
rock had appeared above the surface
while they were engaged in skinning
their seal.
ssCEEING things in the arctic Is a
y very common and interesting ex-
perience. In general this Is due to
our ignorance of a distance interven-
ing, the comparative size of the OBJ
1eot, II a strange animal or unknown
height of q cliff, and the kaleido-
scoplc changes in the various strata
Of air of unequal condemnation and
at different temperatures. This last,
a tremendous factor of the phe-
nomena, causes q mirage or looming
and distortion Of the object in view,
resulting In a complete change In ap-
pearance.
When at the edge of the polar sea
in 1909 Marvin. one of our men on
the Roosevelt, carefully stalked
caribou, spending considerable time
IN crawling on hands and knees and
belIy in order to get within good rife
ranre. When he was about to pull
the trigger the caribou spread his
wings and flew away. 1t was an arc
tic owl!
When we were eight miles away
from headquarters in our eighteen
foot sailing dory in 1915 the men on
shore unanimously agreed that we
we're the 5O0-ton steamship Erik!
In the spring Of the year, when the
-emperature of the air was higher
han that of the harbor ice and it's
everything strata of air, one of my
man reported two dog teams ap-
nroachinE the ship and to be at
a,stance of half q mile. An Eskimo
dor stands two feet high at the shoul-
dsr and measures three feet from
nose to rump. There are generally
eight in a team. The komatik. or
sledre, measures two feet six inches
IN height. Two Eskimos seated on
tho load would mako a grand total
dors included. of 112 cubic feet.
rrnon examination the arriving
s,ed~es proved to be two coffee cans
n,ns inches in height, seven inches In
a,ometer and distant AL feet. An
ohtsct two-tenths of square foot
had been mistaken for one OF liz
cubic feet!
white fox has repeatedly been re-
,,ort.d as q polar bear, which Is about
100 times larger in size. Distant hills
OF unknown height seem SO near. seen
through the exceptionally pure air
~ the arctic, that many a traveller
ba, attempted to accomplish the dis
ssnce between breakfast and supper