of the
droning murmur of the valley. But slowly and steadily it rose above this,
and at last he got up from where he was lying with his back to a tree and
walked out from the timber, where he could hear more plainly.

Muskwa followed him, and when Langdon stopped the tan-faced cub also
stopped. His little ears shot out inquisitively. He turned his head to the
north. From that direction the sound was coming.

In another moment Langdon had recognized it, and yet even then he told
himself that his ears must be playing him false. It could not be the
barking of dogs! By this time Bruce and Metoosin were far to the south with
the pack; at least Metoosin should be, and Bruce was on his return to the
camp! Quickly the sound grew more distinct, and at last he knew that he
could not be mistaken. The dogs were coming up the valley. Something had
turned Bruce and Metoosin northward instead of into the south. And the pack
was giving tongue--that fierce, heated baying which told him they were
again on the fresh spoor of game. A sudden thrill shot through him. There
could be but one living thing in the length and breadth of the valley that
Bruce would set the dogs after, and that was the big grizzly!

For a few moments longer Langdon stood and listened. Then he hurried back
to camp, tied Muskwa to his tree, armed himself with another rifle, and
resaddled his horse. Five minutes later he was riding swiftly in the
direction of the range where a short time before Thor had given him his
life.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thor heard the dogs when they were a mile away. There were two reasons why
he was even less in a mood to run from them now than a few days before. Of
the dogs alone he had no more fear than if they had been so many badgers,
or so many whistlers piping at him from the rocks. He had found them all
mouth and little fang, and easy to kill. It was what followed close after
them that disturbed him. But to-day he had stood face to face with the
thing that had brought the strange scent into his valleys, and it had not
offered to hurt him, and he had refused to kill it. Besides, he was again
seeking Iskwao, the she-bear, and man is not the only animal that will risk
his life for love.

After killing his last dog at dusk of that fatal day when they had pursued
him over the mountain Thor had done just what Bruce thought that he would
do, and instead of continuing southward had made a wider detour toward the
north, and the third