“Mr. Bear, indeed!” said the animal, and went off into peals of huge laughter. “Bare! Ho, ho! That’s a good one! Bare, indeed! With all this fur on! I’m not nearly as bare as you are!” And he rolled about and gurgled with mirth. And the children laughed too, although not quite sure what the joke was. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “That’s just what I was going to ask you,” interrupted Tibbs, “because there aren’t any bears at the South Pole, you know.” “That’s why we came,” replied the Bear. “We thought it was quite time they had some. But what about yourselves?” “We’re looking for the Castle of the South Wind,” said Tibbs. “Perhaps you can tell us the nearest way.” “That I can,” replied the Bear, good-humouredly. “Jump up on my back and I’ll give you a lift. I’m going that way myself.” “How perfectly splendid!” cried Coppertop, joyfully, and scrambled up on to his back, followed by the others. And off they started at a big jog-trot. Swiftly over the snow and ice trotted the Bear, climbing, at times, to the top of a huge iceberg, to spy out the way, and the children had to hold tightly to his fur as he swung along. Mile after mile they went, and Coppertop felt sure they must be nearing their journey’s end. “We shall soon get the December day at this rate!” cried Tibbs. “Will you?” screamed a piercing voice in their ears. “Not if I can prevent it! Oh, dear me, no!” “The Clerk of the Weather!” they all three exclaimed. Before they could utter another word, they found themselves in the midst of a terrific blizzard. And a squalling, snowing, blowing, freezing, breezing, tearing, scaring blizzard it was, to be sure. It blew the children down from the back of the Bear, and rolled them over and over. It bowled them along helplessly till they arrived at the bottom of a great bank of snow. And here it could blow them no further, and so it heaped the snow over them, in a large white mound, until they were completely buried. CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE SNOW “It’s getting so warm, it is. I can hardly find any breff,” cried Kiddiwee. “I call it beautifully cosy. This is how the snow keeps the flowers warm, I suppose. I like it,” said Coppertop. “Oh, dear! It’s getting hotterer and hotterer!” he panted. “The snow is melting all round us--we shall soon have room to walk,” said his sister. “And there will be more air, too.” “The question is, how are we going to get out?” cried Tibbs. “If you had any sense--which I very much doubt--you wouldn’t want to, at least till the blizzard’s gone!” piped up a little shrill voice beside them. And looking down, they beheld a tiny little creature, so wee that, small as they were just then, he made them feel like giants. He was so very minute that he could have built a ninety-roomed castle on Coppertop’s little finger-nail, and hung out the household washing upon one of her golden eyelashes, if she had been her natural size.