witnessed the terrific spectacle,
but they could not see the cub. As Thor stood panting and bleeding over
his lifeless enemy, Langdon lowered his glass.

"My God!" he breathed.

Bruce sprang to his feet.

"Come on!" he cried. "The black's dead! If we hustle we can get our
grizzly!"

And down in the meadow Muskwa ran to Thor with a bit of warm black hide in
his mouth, and Thor lowered his great bleeding head, and just once his red
tongue shot out and caressed Muskwa's face. For the little tan-faced cub
had proved himself; and it may be that Thor had seen and understood.

CHAPTER NINE

Neither Thor nor Muskwa went near the caribou meat after the big fight.
Thor was in no condition to eat, and Muskwa was so filled with excitement
and trembling that he could not swallow a mouthful. He continued to worry a
strip of black hide, snarling and growling in his puny way, as though
finishing what the other had begun.

For many minutes the grizzly stood with his big head drooping, and the
blood gathered in splashes under him. He was facing down the valley. There
was almost no wind--so little that it was scarcely possible to tell from
which direction it came. Eddies of it were caught in the coulees, and
higher up about the shoulders and peaks it blew stronger. Now and then one
of these higher movements of air would sweep gently downward and flow
through the valley for a few moments in a great noiseless breath that
barely stirred the tops of the balsams and spruce.

One of these mountain-breaths came as Thor faced the east. And with it,
faint and terrible, came the _man-smell_!

Thor roused himself with a sudden growl from the lethargy into which he had
momentarily allowed himself to sink. His relaxed muscles hardened. He
raised his head and sniffed the wind.

Muskwa ceased his futile fight with the bit of hide and also sniffed the
air. It was warm with the man-scent, for Langdon and Bruce were running and
sweating, and the odour of man-sweat drifts heavy and far. It filled Thor
with a fresh rage. For a second time it came when he was hurt and bleeding.
He had already associated the man-smell with hurt, and now it was doubly
impressed upon him. He turned his head and snarled at the mutilated body of
the big black. Then he snarled menacingly in the face of the wind. He was
in no humour to run away. In these moments, if Bruce and Langdon had
appeared over the rise, Thor would have charged with that deadly ferocity
w