The Argosy — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Peril on the Sea. I5I When he sighted the landmark which would lead him to the cove where the Concordia lay at anchor, he felt relieved, and hastened now to gain his only shelter. He waded out to her, and then proceeded to pull off his long reindeer-skin boots, and replace them with dry ones, meanwhile debating with himself whether he should have another sleep, or pull along the shore while it was calm, in search of a settlement. He decided upon the latter course, and was in the act of pushing his boat off into deep water, when he saw a white mass moving across the beach toward him. Experience told him that the object, which looked like an animated snow hummock, was, in reality, a polar bear, and he prepared for the attack he knew would follow, win speed and coolness. When a polar bear is not hungry he is rarely aggressive, and a pelting with stones will often send him away. But, in winter, when birds and seals have disappeared, there is nothing for him to feed upon, and he crouches in some sheltered corner, dozing his time away, and just keeping life within him by sucking a kind of teat in his paw, through which he draws the blubber, that in summer, when food is plentiful, forms in a layer between the skin and flesh. It is when sharp hunger is gnawing at his vitals that he proves a dangerous foe to mankind. So Carl, with the quickness taught by former circumstances, seized a heavy hatchet, and pushed rapidly off from the shore. But the bear was close upon him, and, with a furious roar, leaped toward the boat, missing her by a few feet. Carl, however, had barely time to jump from the thwarts to the well of the boat before the bear was by his side, with one huge paw upon the gunwale. <A crashing blow from the hatchet loosened the bear’s hold for a moment ; the next, the animal re-appeared, and, howling with pain and fury, clutched the boat’s side with his uninjured paw. Carl knew that all was over with him if the bear once rose above the level of the gunwale ; so, giving the axe a tremendous swing, he brought it down on the paw with redoubled force, crushing the great bones and sinews of the brute, who fell back in the water, uttering fearful cries of impotent rage and agony, but disabled from returning to the attack. All thought of further sleep was now at an end. The calm weather made it possible for Carl to creep along the shore, at a short distance off the land, yet close enough for his practised eye to discover, through the bright starlit night, any trace of human life. But only the dreadful sameness of rock, ice and snow met his view; not even a bear enlivened the scene. The wind again freshened, and he drifted three more days before he could return to land. ‘Then once more he stranded his boat, drank some snow-water, and, in spite of fear of hungry bears, fell again into a deep, long sleep. Then, finding nothing more than barren CcommicoooKks (SO) an