washing his hands
in a canvas basin. Langdon was mopping his face with a towel. Close to the
fire Metoosin was kneeling, and from the big black skittle he was holding
over the coals came the hissing and sputtering of fat caribou steaks, and
about the pleasantest smell that had ever come Muskwa's way. The air all
about him was heavy with the aroma of good things.

When Langdon had finished drying his face he opened a can of something. It
was sweetened condensed milk. He poured the white fluid into a basin, and
came with it toward Muskwa. The cub had unsuccessfully attempted flight on
the ground until his neck was sore; now he climbed the tree. He went up so
quickly that Langdon was astonished, and he snarled and spat at the man as
the basin of milk was placed where he would almost fall into it when he
came down.

Muskwa remained at the end of his rope up the tree, and for a long time the
hunters paid no more attention to him. He could see them eating and he
could hear them talking as they planned a new campaign against Thor.

"We've got to trick him after what happened to-day," declared Bruce. "No
more tracking 'im after this, Jimmy. We can track until doomsday an' he'll
always know where we are." He paused for a moment and listened. "Funny the
dogs don't come," he said. "I wonder--"

He looked at Langdon.

"Impossible!" exclaimed the latter, as he read the significance of his
companion's look. "Bruce, you don't mean to say that bear might kill them
all!"

"I've hunted a good many grizzlies," replied the mountaineer quietly, "but
I ain't never hunted a trickier one than this. Jimmy, he trapped them dogs
on the ledge, an' he tricked the dog he killed up on the peak. He's liable
to get 'em all into a corner, an' if that happens--"

He shrugged his shoulders suggestively.

Again Langdon listened.

"If there were any alive at dark they should be here pretty soon," he said.
"I'm sorry, now--sorry we didn't leave the dogs at home."

Bruce laughed a little grimly.

"Fortunes o' war, Jimmy," he said. "You don't go hunting grizzlies with a
pack of lapdogs, an' you've got to expect to lose some of them sooner or
later. We've tackled the wrong bear, that's all. He's beat us."

"Beat us?"

"I mean he's beat us in a square game, an' we dealt a raw hand at that in
using dogs at all. Do you want that bear bad enough to go after him my
way?"

Langdon nodded.

"What's your scheme?"

"You've got to drop pretty idees