kitten as he ground tender flesh between his tiny teeth.
Thor, as in all his food-seeking, hunted first for the tidbits, though the
_sapoos oovin_ had made him as empty as a room without furniture. He pulled
out the thin leafs of fat from about the kidneys and bowels, and munched
at yard-long strings of it, his eyes half closed.

The last of the sun faded away from the mountains, and darkness followed
swiftly after the twilight. It was dark when they finished, and little
Muskwa was as wide as he was long.

Thor was the greatest of nature's conservators. With him nothing went to
waste that was good to eat, and at the present moment if the old bull
caribou had deliberately walked within his reach Thor in all probability
would not have killed him. He had food, and his business was to store that
food where it would be safe.

He went back to the balsam thicket, but the gorged cub now made no effort
to follow him. He was vastly contented, and something told him that Thor
would not leave the meat. Ten minutes later Thor verified his judgment by
returning. In his huge jaws he caught the caribou at the back of the neck.
Then he swung himself partly sidewise and began dragging the carcass toward
the timber as a dog might have dragged a ten-pound slab of bacon.

The young bull probably weighed four hundred pounds. Had he weighed eight
hundred, or even a thousand, Thor would still have dragged him--but had
the carcass weighed that much he would have turned straight around and
_backed_ with his load.

In the edge of the balsams Thor had already found a hollow in the ground.
He thrust the carcass into this hollow, and while Muskwa watched with a
great and growing interest, he proceeded to cover it over with dry needles,
sticks, a rotting tree butt, and a log. He did not rear himself up and
leave his "mark" on a tree as a warning to other bears. He simply nosed
round for a bit, and then went out of the timber.

Muskwa followed him now, and he had some trouble in properly navigating
himself under the handicap of his added weight. The stars were beginning to
fill the sky, and under these stars Thor struck straight up a steep and
rugged slope that led to the mountain-tops. Up and up he went, higher than
Muskwa had ever been. They crossed a patch of snow. And then they came to a
place where it seemed as if a volcano had disrupted the bowels of a
mountain. Man could hardly have travelled where Thor led Muskwa.

At last he stopped. He