CHAPTER TEN

If it had not been for Langdon, this day of the fight between the two bears
would have held still greater excitement and another and deadlier peril for
Thor and Muskwa. Three minutes after the hunters had arrived breathless and
sweating upon the scene of the sanguinary conflict Bruce was ready and
anxious to continue the pursuit of Thor. He knew the big grizzly could not
be far away; he was certain that Thor had gone up the mountain. He found
signs of the grizzly's feet in the gravel of the coulee at just about the
time Thor and the tan-faced cub struck the Bighorn Highway.

His arguments failed to move Langdon. Stirred to the depth of his soul by
what he had seen, and what he saw about him now, the hunter-naturalist
refused to leave the blood-stained and torn-up arena in which the grizzly
and the black had fought their duel.

"If I knew that I was not going to fire a single shot, I would travel five
thousand miles to see this," he said. "It's worth thinking about, and
looking over, Bruce. The grizzly won't spoil. This will--in a few hours. If
there's a story here we can dig out I want it."

Again and again Langdon went over the battlefield, noting the ripped-up
ground, the big spots of dark-red stain, the strips of flayed skin, and the
terrible wounds on the body of the dead black. For half an hour Bruce paid
less attention to these things than he did to the carcass of the caribou.
At the end of that time he called Langdon to the edge of the clump of
balsams.

"You wanted the story," he said, "an' I've got it for you, Jimmy."

He entered the balsams and Langdon followed him. A few steps under the
cover Bruce halted and pointed to the hollow in which Thor had cached his
meat. The hollow was stained with blood.

"You was right in your guess, Jimmy," he said. "Our grizzly is a
meat-eater. Last night he killed a caribou out there in the meadow. I know
it was the grizzly that killed 'im an' not the black, because the tracks
along the edge of the timber are grizzly tracks. Come on. I'll show you
where 'e jumped the caribou!"

He led the way back into the meadow, and pointed out where Thor had dragged
down the young bull. There were bits of flesh and a great deal of stain
where he and Muskwa had feasted.

"He hid the carcass in the balsams after he had filled himself," went on
Bruce. "This morning the black came along, smelled the meat, an' robbed the
cache. Then back come the grizzly after his