Part 7 (1/2)

Again he turned along the crest of the slope, his eyes once more searching the valley, and Langdon followed a step behind him, wondering what had become of the cub.

And Muskwa, still slumbering on the rock-ledge with Thor, was dreaming of the mother who lay crushed under the rock on the slope, and as he dreamed he whimpered softly.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The ledge where Thor and Muskwa lay caught the first gleams of the morning sun, and as the sun rose higher the ledge grew warmer and warmer, and Thor, when he awoke, merely stretched himself and made no effort to rise. After his wounds and the _sapoos oowin_ and the feast in the valley he was feeling tremendously fine and comfortable, and he was in no very great haste to leave this golden pool of sunlight. For a long time he looked steadily and curiously at Muskwa. In the chill of the night the little cub had snuggled up close between the warmth of Thor's huge forearms, and still lay there, whimpering in his babyish way as he dreamed.

After a time Thor did something that he had never been guilty of before--he sniffed gently at the soft little ball between his paws, and just once his big flat red tongue touched the cub's face; and Muskwa, perhaps still dreaming of his mother, snuggled closer. As little white children have won the hearts of savages who were about to slay them, so Muskwa had come strangely into the life of Thor.

The big grizzly was still puzzled. Not only was he struggling against an unaccountable dislike of all cubs in general, but also against the firmly established habits of ten years of aloneness. Yet he was beginning to comprehend that there was something very pleasant and companionable in the nearness of Muskwa. With the coming of man a new emotion had entered into his being--perhaps only the spark of an emotion. Until one has enemies, and faces dangers, one cannot fully appreciate friends.h.i.+p--and it may be that Thor, who now confronted real enemies and a real danger for the first time, was beginning to understand what friends.h.i.+p meant. Also it was drawing near to his mating season, and about Muskwa was the scent of his mother. And so as Muskwa continued to bask and dream in the suns.h.i.+ne, there was a growing content in Thor.

He looked down into the valley, s.h.i.+mmering in the wet of the night's rain, and he saw nothing to rouse discontent; he sniffed the air, and it was filled with the unpolluted sweetness of growing gra.s.s, of flowers, and balsam, and water fresh from the clouds.

Thor began to lick his wound, and it was this movement that roused Muskwa.

The cub lifted his head. He blinked at the sun for a moment--then rubbed his face sleepily with his tiny paw and stood up. Like all youngsters, he was ready for another day, in spite of the hards.h.i.+ps and toil of the preceding one.

While Thor still lay restfully looking down into the valley, Muskwa began investigating the crevices in the rock wall, and tumbled about among the boulders on the ledge.

From the valley Thor turned his eyes to the cub. There was curiosity in his att.i.tude as he watched Muskwa's antics and queer tumblings among the rocks.

Then he rose c.u.mbrously and shook himself.

For at least five minutes he stood looking down into the valley, and sniffing the wind, as motionless as though carven out of rock. And Muskwa, perking up his little ears, came and stood beside him, his sharp little eyes peering from Thor off into sunlit s.p.a.ce, and then back to Thor again, as if wondering what was about to happen next.

The big grizzly answered the question. He turned along the rock shelf and began descending into the valley. Muskwa tagged behind, just as he had followed the day before. The cub felt twice as big and fully twice as strong as yesterday, and he no longer was obsessed by that uncomfortable yearning for his mother's milk. Thor had graduated him quickly, and he was a meat-eater. And he knew they were returning to where they had feasted last night.

They had descended half the distance of the slope when the wind brought something to Thor. A deep-chested growl rolled out of him as he stopped for a moment, the thick ruff about his neck bristling ominously. The scent he had caught came from the direction of his cache, and it was an odour which he was not in a humour to tolerate in this particular locality. Strongly he smelled the presence of another bear. This would not have excited him under ordinary conditions, and it would not have excited him now had the presence been that of a female bear. But the scent was that of a he-bear, and it drifted strongly up a rock-cut ravine that ran straight down toward the balsam patch in which he had hidden the caribou.

Thor stopped to ask himself no questions. Growling under his breath, he began to descend so swiftly that Muskwa had great difficulty in keeping up with him. Not until they came to the edge of the plain that overlooked the lake and the balsams did they stop. Muskwa's little jaws hung open as he panted. Then his ears p.r.i.c.ked forward, he stared, and suddenly every muscle in his small body became rigid.

Seventy-five yards below them their cache was being outraged. The robber was a huge black bear. He was a splendid outlaw. He was, perhaps, three hundred pounds lighter than Thor, but he stood almost as high, and in the sunlight his coat shone with the velvety gloss of sable--the biggest and boldest bear that had entered Thor's domain in many a day. He had pulled the caribou carca.s.s from its hiding-place and was eating as Thor and Muskwa looked down on him.

After a moment Muskwa peered up questioningly at Thor. ”What are we going to do?” he seemed to ask. ”He's got our dinner!”

Slowly and very deliberately Thor began picking his way down those last seventy-five yards. He seemed to be in no hurry bow.

When he reached the edge of the meadow, perhaps thirty or forty yards from the big invader, he stopped again. There was nothing particularly ugly in his att.i.tude, but the ruff about his shoulders was bigger than Muskwa had ever seen it before.

The black looked up from his feast, and for a full half minute they eyed each other. In a slow, pendulum-like motion the grizzly's huge head swung from side to side; the black was as motionless as a sphinx.

Four or five feet from Thor stood Muskwa. In a small-boyish sort of way he knew that something was going to happen soon, and in that same small-boyish way he was ready to put his stub of a tail between his legs and flee with Thor, or advance and fight with him. His eyes were curiously attracted by that pendulum-like swing of Thor's head. All nature understood that swing.

Man had learned to understand it. ”Look out when a grizzly rolls his head!”

is the first commandment of the bear-hunter in the mountains.

The big black understood, and like other bears in Thor's domain, he should have slunk a little backward, turned about and made his exit. Thor gave him ample time. But the black was a new bear in the valley--and he was not only that: he was a powerful bear, and unwhipped; and he had overlorded a range of his own. He stood his ground.

The first growl of menace that pa.s.sed between the two came from the black.

Again Thor advanced, slowly and deliberately--straight for the robber.