The wind increased, but its keenness the party did not mind. They were only glad that it remained favorable to their line of travel. They swept down the frozen river at a speed not slower than ten miles an hour. The wolves had followed them on the ice, or along the edge of the river, up to this time. They saw, indeed, a pack of the ugly creatures on a wooded point ahead of them, at a distance of a couple of miles. But before the sleds reached this point (which served to hide the icy track beyond) the wolves suddenly disappeared. "Something has scared them fellers," Andy declared. "The traders?" suggested Jack, who traveled with the old hunter and Mark on one sled, while Roebach, Wash and Professor Henderson sailed on the other. "Not hardly. Men wouldn't scare them critters so. Something bigger and uglier than the wolves themselves, I reckon." To prove how true Andy's guess was, Mark shouted the next moment: "A bear--two of them! Three! See that crowd of bears, will you? No wonder the wolves skedaddled." Several of the huge bears, like the one they had had the fight with on the glacier, appeared out of the woods and waddled on to the ice. They had evidently sighted the sailing party, and they roared savagely and tried to head off the sleds. That they were wild with hunger, there could be no doubt. "I have heard the Indians say that, in bad seasons, the bears travel in packs like wolves, and will attack villages and tear the huts to pieces to get at the inmates," Roebach said, from the other sledge. "How fortunate that we are not afoot, then," Professor Henderson remarked. The next moment the two sleds shot around the wooded point and the river below lay before them. The bears were galloping after the party and shut off all way of escape to the rear. "Oh, gollyation! Looker dat mess ob b'ars!" shrieked Washington White. And there was a good reason for the black man's terror. Strung out across the frozen river, as though they had been waiting for the coming of the exploring party, was a great herd of Kodiak bears--monsters of such horrid mien that more than Washington were terror-stricken by their appearance. There were more than half a hundred of the savage creatures, little and big, and they met the appearance of the two sailing sledges with a salvo of bloodthirsty growls. CHAPTER XXVI THE ABANDONED CITY It was too late for our heroes and their friends to escape giving battle to the bears. They could not steer the sleds clear of the monsters, nor could they retreat. There were enough of the savage beasts in the rear to make this last impossible. "Come ahead!" yelled Andy Sudds to Phineas Roebach, who guided the second sled. "Don't stop." Jack and Mark, with the old hunter, were on the first sled. They were armed with magazine rifles, and all seized these and prepared to fight for their lives.