t see Langdon and Bruce as they came over
the sky-line; and he could not smell them, for the wind was blowing up
instead of down. Oblivious of their presence he came to the snow-belt.
Joyously he smelled of Thor's huge footprints, and followed them. And above
him Bruce and Langdon waited, crouched low, their guns on the ground, and
each with his thick flannel shirt stripped off and held ready in his
hands. When Muskwa was less than twenty yards from them they came tearing
down upon him like an avalanche.

Not until Bruce was upon him did Muskwa recover himself sufficiently to
move. He saw and realized danger in the last fifth of a second, and as
Bruce flung himself forward, his shirt outspread like a net, Muskwa darted
to one side. Sprawling on his face, Bruce gathered up a shirtful of snow
and clutched it to his breast, believing for a moment that he had the cub,
and at this same instant Langdon made a drive that entangled him with his
friend's long legs and sent him turning somersaults down the snow-slide.

Muskwa bolted down the mountain as fast as his short legs could carry him.
In another second Bruce was after him, and Langdon joined in ten feet
behind.

Suddenly Muskwa made a sharp turn, and the momentum with which Bruce was
coming carried him thirty or forty feet below him, where the lanky
mountaineer stopped himself only by doubling up like a jack-knife and
digging toes, hands, elbows, and even his shoulders in the soft shale.

Langdon had switched, and was hot after Muskwa. He flung himself face
downward, shirt outspread, just as the cub made another turn, and when he
rose to his feet his face was scratched and he spat half a handful of dirt
and shale out of his mouth.

Unfortunately for Muskwa his second turn brought him straight down to
Bruce, and before he could turn again he was enveloped in sudden darkness
and suffocation, and over him there rang out a fiendish and triumphant
yell.

"I got 'im!" shouted Bruce.

Inside the shirt Muskwa scratched and bit and snarled, and Bruce was having
his hands full when Langdon ran down with the second shirt. Very shortly
Muskwa was trussed up like a papoose. His legs and his body were swathed so
tightly that he could not move them. His head was not covered. It was the
only part of him that showed, and the only part of him that he could move,
and it looked so round and frightened and funny that for a minute or two
Langdon and Bruce forgot their disappointments an