softly. Thor lifted his right paw four inches from the
ground. "Another inch and I'll give you a welt!" he growled.

Muskwa wriggled and trembled; he licked his lips with his tiny red tongue,
half in fear and half pleading for mercy, and in spite of Thor's lifted paw
he wormed his way another six inches nearer.

There was a sort of rattle instead of a growl in Thor's throat. His heavy
hand fell to the sand. A third time he looked about and sniffed the air; he
growled again. Any crusty old bachelor would have understood that growl.
"Now where the devil is the kid's mother!" it said.

Something happened then. Muskwa had crept close to Thor's wounded leg. He
rose up, and his nose caught the scent of the raw wound. Gently his tongue
touched it. It was like velvet--that tongue. It was wonderfully pleasant to
feel, and Thor stood there for many moments, making neither movement nor
sound while the cub licked his wound. Then he lowered his great head. He
sniffed the soft little ball of friendship that had come to him. Muskwa
whined in a motherless way. Thor growled, but more softly now. It was no
longer a threat. The heat of his great tongue fell once on the cub's face.

"Come on!" he said, and resumed his journey into the north.

And close at his heels followed the motherless little tan-faced cub.

CHAPTER SIX

The creek which Thor was following was a tributary of the Babine, and he
was headed pretty nearly straight for the Skeena. As he was travelling
upstream the country was becoming higher and rougher. He had come perhaps
seven or eight miles from the summit of the divide when he found Muskwa.
From this point the slopes began to assume a different aspect. They were
cut up by dark, narrow gullies, and broken by enormous masses of rocks,
jagged cuffs, and steep slides of shale. The creek became noisier and more
difficult to follow.

Thor was now entering one of his strongholds: a region which contained a
thousand hiding-places, if he had wanted to hide; a wild, uptorn country
where it was not difficult for him to kill big game, and where he was
certain that the man-smell would not follow him.

For half an hour after leaving the mass of rocks where he had encountered
Muskwa, Thor lumbered on as if utterly oblivious of the fact that the cub
was following. But he could hear him and smell him.

Muskwa was having a hard time of it. His fat little body and his fat little
legs were unaccustomed to this sort of journ