Everybody laughed. The captain held his sides and the officers on the cutting stage almost fell off in the violence of their mirth. Louis came up spluttering and splashing. He was an expert swimmer, as expert as the Kanakas among whom he had lived for years, and he needed all his skill to keep afloat in his heavy boots and skin clothes. As soon as the mate could control his merriment, he stuck the long handle of his spade down and Louis grasped it and was pulled back on the whale's body. He sat there, dripping and shivering and with chattering teeth, rolling his white eyes up at the laughing crew along the rail with a tragic "Et tu, Brute" expression. He couldn't see the joke. "Lemme aboard," he whimpered. "Stay where you are," roared the captain, "and cut in that head." Louis lived in mortal fear of the skipper, and the way he straightened up in his slippery seat and said "Aye, aye, sir!" made the crew burst out laughing again. Another axe was passed down to him. He floundered to his feet, and though he found it harder than ever in his wet boots to keep his footing, and slipped more than once and almost fell off again, he finally succeeded in cutting off the head. He had regained his air of bravado by the time he had scrambled back on deck. "Pretty close shave, Louis," ventured a sailor. "Humph," returned Louis, "dat's nothin'--nothin' at all." And with quite lordly dignity, despite the dripping brine, he stalked off to the cabin to change his clothes. CHAPTER XXI BEARS FOR A CHANGE Soon after taking our third whale, we saw our first polar bears--two of them on a narrow floe of ice. When the brig was within fifty yards of them the mate got out his rifle and began blazing away. His first shot struck one of the bears in the hind leg. The animal wheeled and snapped at the wound. The second shot stretched it out dead. The second bear was hit somewhere in the body and, plunging into the sea, it struck out on a three-mile swim for the main ice pack. It swam with head and shoulders out, cleaving the water like a high-power launch and leaving a creaming wake behind. Moving so swiftly across the brig's course, it made a difficult target. "I'm going down after that fellow," said Mr. Winchester. He called a boat's crew and lowered, taking his place in the bow with his rifle, while Long John sat at the tiller. He had got only a short distance from the ship when Captain Shorey ordered Gabriel after him. "Killing that bear may be a bigger job than he thinks," he said. "Lower a boat, Mr. Gabriel, and lend a hand. It may be needed." In a few minutes Gabriel was heading after the mate's boat. Neither boat hoisted sail. With four men at the sweeps, it was as much as the boats could do to gain on the brute. If the bear was not making fifteen miles an hour, I'm no judge.