of hoofed game was as different from the
_nechisoo_, or "grazing smell," to Thor as day from night. One hung
elusively in the air, like the faint and shifting breath of a passing
woman's scented dress and hair; the other came hot and heavy, close to the
earth, like the odour of a broken bottle of perfume.

Even Muskwa now caught the scent as he crept up close behind the big
grizzly and lay down.

For fully ten minutes Thor did not move. His eyes took in the hollow, the
edge of the lake, and the approach to the timber, and his nose gauged the
wind as accurately as the pointing of a compass. The reason he remained
quiet was that he was almost on the danger-line. In other words, the
mountains and the sudden dip had formed a "split wind" in the hollow, and
had Thor appeared fifty yards above where he now crouched, the keen-scented
caribou would have got full wind of him.

With his little ears cocked forward and a new gleam of understanding in his
eyes, Muskwa now looked upon his first lesson in game-stalking. Crouched so
low that he seemed to be travelling on his belly, Thor moved slowly and
noiselessly toward the creek, the huge ruff just forward of his shoulders
standing out like the stiffened spine of a dog's back. Muskwa followed. For
fully a hundred yards Thor continued his detour, and three times in that
hundred yards he paused to sniff in the direction of the timber. At last he
was satisfied. The wind was full in his face, and it was rich with promise.

[Illustration: "Like the wind Thor bore down on the flank of the caribou,
swung a little to one side, and then without any apparent effort--still
like a huge ball--he bounded in and upward, and the short race was done."]

He began to advance, in a slinking, rolling, rock-shouldered motion,
taking shorter steps now, and with every muscle in his great body ready for
action. Within two minutes he reached the edge of the balsams, and there he
paused again. The crackling of underbrush came distinctly. The caribou were
up, but they were not alarmed. They were going forth to drink and graze.

Thor moved again, parallel to the sound. This brought him quickly to the
edge of the timber, and there he stood, concealed by foliage, but with the
lake and the short stretch of meadow in view. A big bull caribou came out
first. His horns were half grown, and in velvet. A two-year-old followed,
round and sleek and glistening like brown velvet in the sunset. For two
minutes the bull