In a few minutes he had poled his way to where the _Felix_ lay, her decks far aslant, but her rail still above water. To board her, he was forced to leap from the floating sledge. He caught the rail with his hands and pulled himself aboard. He clambered up the tilting deck and forced the forward hatch, which had been battened down by Scoland's men. Below decks he found all right and tidy. A glance into the hold discovered its stores of supplies almost intact. At least, he and his companions faced no menace of starvation. Returning to the deck, he made his way aft, and opened the cabin hatch. He found the storeroom where the ship's supply of spirits was kept, and smashed in the door with a blow of his foot. Smiling as he did so, he filled the flask of Zenas Wright. As he emerged on deck once more, he glanced shoreward. Danger, white, cruel, and desperate, was stalking his companions and they knew it not. From his position of vantage on the deck of the _Felix_, Polaris saw a moving mass that showed silver against its dark background in the rocks some hundred feet back from the shore of the basin, where his fellow travelers were waiting for him. Gliding among the boulders, with all the sinuous caution of a cat intent upon a group of mice, an immense polar bear was creeping to attack them! Noiselessly, the great brute crept on in the cover of the rocks. The wind blew from the party, so that the keen-nosed dogs were unaware of the presence of a foe, and sounded no alarm. Across the waters Polaris sent a warning shout. "A white bear!" he shouted, pointing. "In the rocks behind you! Ready with your guns if he charges!" As he raised his voice a change in the wind or some other appeal to their finely attuned senses, informed the dogs that their foe was near. Gray runners and brown turned to face the rocks, every neck bristling. Stimulated by the brave demeanor of the fearless children of Pallas the huskies' ugly snouts were as snarlingly defiant as the others. Over the rocks and into the open clambered the bear. His flanks were lean, and he was hunger-mad, to the point where numbers did not daunt him. He stood uncertain for but a moment, then broke into a lumbering, padded gallop, which, clumsy as it seemed, would have pressed a fleet runner hard to distance. A menacing roar answered the ear-splitting clamor of the dogs. Wright and the Sardanian seized rifles from the sledge. Sternly calling back the dogs, they opened fire together. Minos, a novice in the use of the weapon, missed widely at the first shot, and in his haste jammed the lever of his rifle. The bullet of Zenas Wright, who was always an indifferent marksman, only grazed the flank of the bear, injuring him little and adding much to his rage. Again the geologist fired, but did not stop the great brute. The galloping monster was close upon them.