He started back toward the fight, firing as he went. Wash followed more cautiously; and when one wounded beast started on a lumbering gallop in his direction, the colored man uttered a frightened shriek and legged it back to the professor. Fortunately just about then the sled on which the boys and old Andy fought, came through the ruck of the struggle. Andy hacked with a hatchet the paws from the last Kodiak that tried to seize the sled, and the two boys continued to pour bullets into the howling, roaring pack. They took Phineas aboard the slowly moving sled and so reached the professor and Wash. Immediately that sled was put in motion and the party traveled a full mile before they dared halt and take stock of the damage done. The bears had given up the pursuit. The ice for yards around had been crimsoned by the blood of the huge beasts. They could count, even at that distance, ten dead ones, and many would die of their wounds. "And we didn't get even a slice of bear steak to pay us for it all!" groaned Jack. "Wrong," returned Andy Sudds, proudly, and he held up the two paws he had severed from the last brute. "Those will give us all a taste of fricassee--and that same dish will be a welcome one, I declare." They were not again molested by bears; but looking back when they had traveled on some distance farther (the river being straight in this place) they saw a huge pack of wolves gathering on the ice--more than two hundred at least of the savage brutes--and believed that a battle royal was in progress between the remaining Kodiaks and the wolves. "I hope they fight like the Kilkenny cats!" declared Jack, with emphasis, "And I hope the wolves will be kept so busy picking the bones of the slain that they will follow us no farther. They are like sharks at sea. I hate the beasts." The country they passed as they slid down the river remained all but deserted. The wind rose and wafted them faster and faster on their way; but it was plainly bringing them a storm, too. When the sun rose next time it was behind a thick mantle of mist. Thunder rolled across the heavens and the lightning glared fitfully. The heat had been unbearable before the storm, and the downpour of rain was terrific. The party was washed out of its encampment, and had it not been that Andy discovered shelter for them in a sort of cavern under a huge boulder, they would all have been saturated. The storm ended with a sharp fall of hail. Hailstones as big as duck eggs fell, and the wind blew so that a portion of the river-ice was broken up. When the storm ceased the sun was only an hour high and it was already cold. There being no dry wood now, the party suffered exceedingly before they were able to set sail again on the re-frozen river. Quite six hours elapsed after the cessation of the hailstorm until the ice would again bear.