knife, which would not be much more use than a darning needle against such an antagonist.

Cold as it was the sweat broke out on the lad’s brow as he realized his position. He stood immovable, staring at the white bear. The great creature, too, appeared to be pondering its next move. Behind Raynor the berg rose to its summit in a series of ledges. Anxious to place as great a distance as possible between himself and the wild beast, the young engineer began to climb upward.

The bear did not follow till he had clambered some distance up the icy walls.

Then it extended its long neck, and opening its mouth emitted an appalling roar. Raynor’s blood ran cold as he saw it shuffle deliberately from the ledge where it had been eyeing him and begin to climb up after him.

“I’ve not a chance on earth,” he groaned.

He looked down at the white monster as it clumsily clambered up toward him. Its movements were quite deliberate, as though the creature knew that the lad could not escape by any possibility. Saliva dribbled from its red fangs as it mounted steadily and Raynor could glimpse its sharp white teeth.

He felt his scalp tighten with fear and kept back a shout of terror only by a supreme effort of will power. The distance that had at first separated the lad and his savage foe was now diminished from feet to inches. In a few seconds more they would be face to face and then——?

   Raymond could almost feel its hot breath.   

In a frenzy of alarm Raynor seized his tin lunch box from his pocket and hurled it with all his force in the face of the bear. One of the sharp corners struck it fairly on the nose and brought the blood. But it did not stop the creature’s progress.

On the contrary, it enraged it. Shaking its head from the pain, the bear emitted a thunderous roar of rage and scrambled up faster than ever. The scrape of its claws, like steel chisels, against the ice, was horribly suggestive. Raynor could almost feel its hot breath, when something entirely unexpected happened.

A sudden shift to get further away from the bear resulted in the lad losing his footing on the steep and slippery surface of the berg.

Like a stone from a sling he shot down the glassy side with the speed of the wind. Ahead of him was green water but he was powerless to check himself.

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