You may wonder how the sailor and the bear got off on this ice-floe together; as you, no doubt, feel sure they did not make an appointment to meet there. The sailor told how he came there. It happened this way: The day before, he had lost a small wallet, containing some of his valuables, among the ice hummocks near the shore. As soon as he discovered his loss he searched for the bag, and his companions aided him. It could not be found, and, this day, while the men were occupied in packing up the last of their effects, he went out on the ice to look once more among the hummocks for his wallet. He wandered some distance out, but the ice was solid and firm. Suddenly he heard a noise like a sharp thunder clap, and the next instant he was floating out into the open sea, with blocks of ice swirling and tumbling about him in all directions. The ice had broken loose, and there was no way for him to reach the shore. He called and shouted, but his cries did not reach the ship, or the men in the tent. He was afraid the floe he was on would go to pieces before he could be rescued, and he knew it would be impossible for him to swim through the masses of loose ice. His swift course was fortunately arrested by the ice-pack, and he hoped there would be time to rescue him before it was all swept away by the waves, as he was sure he must soon be missed by his companions in the tent. Just as he was comforting himself with this thought, he turned, and saw a large polar bear sitting upon its haunches very near him, and regarding him attentively. As the polar bear is dead, and as he was not able to tell his own story, either living or dead, in any language that we could understand, I cannot inform you how he came to be sailing out to sea on a cake of ice. But there he was, and greatly alarmed was the sailor when he caught sight of him. He had the presence of mind, however, not to make any sudden motion, and hoped by keeping very still, to persuade the bear that he was only an inanimate object. But the creature knew better than that. It is probable he had been observing the sailor for some time, and the reason the man did not notice the beast was because it was so nearly the color of the ice hummocks. It soon crossed over to his ice-floe, and it was then that the men in the tent first saw what had happened to their companion. [Illustration: THE ICEBERGS CLOSED AROUND THE SHIP.]