The first night after leaving Iskwao and Pipoonaskoos the big grizzly and
the tan-faced cub wandered without sleep under the brilliant stars. Thor
did not hunt for meat. He climbed a steep slope, then went down the shale
side of a dip, and in a small basin hidden at the foot of a mountain came
to a soft green meadow where the dog-tooth violet, with its slender stem,
its two lily-like leaves, its single cluster of five-petalled flowers, and
its luscious, bulbous root grew in great profusion. And here all through
the night he dug and ate.
Muskwa, who had filled himself on spring beauty roots, was not hungry, and
as the day had been a restful one for him, outside of his fighting, he
found this night filled with its brilliant stars quite enjoyable. The moon
came up about ten o'clock, and it was the biggest, and the reddest, and the
most beautiful moon Muskwa had seen in his short life. It rolled up over
the peaks like a forest fire, and filled all the Rocky Mountains with a
wonderful glow. The basin, in which there were perhaps ten acres of meadow,
was lighted up almost like day. The little lake at the foot of the mountain
glimmered softly, and the tiny stream that fed it from the melting snows a
thousand feet above shot down in glistening cascades that caught the
moonlight like rivulets of dull polished diamonds.
About the meadow were scattered little clumps of bushes and a few balsams
and spruce, as if set there for ornamental purposes; and on one side there
was a narrow, verdure-covered slide that sloped upward for a third of a
mile, and at the top of which, unseen by Muskwa and Thor, a band of sheep
were sleeping.
Muskwa wandered about, always near Thor, investigating the clumps of
bushes, the dark shadows of the balsams and spruce, and the edge of the
lake. Here he found a plashet of soft mud which was a great solace to his
sore feet. Twenty times during the night he waded in the mud.
Even when the dawn came Thor seemed to be in no great haste to leave the
basin. Until the sun was well up he continued to wander about the meadow
and the edge of the lake, digging up occasional roots, and eating tender
grass. This did not displease Muskwa, who made his breakfast of the
dog-tooth violet bulbs. The one matter that puzzled him was why Thor did
not go into the lake and throw out trout, for he yet had to learn that all
water did not contain fish. At last he went fishing for himself, and
succeeded in getting a black hard-shelled water beetle that nipped his nose
with a pair of needle-like pincers and brought a yelp from him.
It was perhaps ten o'clock, and the sun-filled basin was like a warm oven
to a thick-coated bear, when Thor searched up among the rocks near the
waterfall until he found a place that was as cool as an old-fashioned
cellar. It was a miniature cavern. All about it the slate and sandstone was
of a dark and clammy wet from a hundred little trickles of snow water that
ran down from the peaks.
It was just the sort of a place Thor loved on a July day, but to Muskwa it
was dark and gloomy and not a thousandth part as pleasant as the sun. So
after an hour or two he left Thor in his frigidarium and began to
investigate the treacherous ledges.
For a few minutes all went well--then he stepped on a green-tinted slope of
slate over which a very shallow dribble of water was running. The water had
been running over it in just that way for some centuries, and the shelving
slate was worn as smooth as the surface of a polished pearl, and it was as
slippery as a greased pole. Muskwa's feet went out from under him so
quickly that he hardly knew what had happened. The next moment he was on
his way to the lake a hundred feet below. He rolled over and over. He
plashed into shallow pools. He bounced over miniature waterfalls like a
rubber ball. The wind was knocked out of him. He was blinded and dazed by
water and shock, and he gathered fresh speed with every yard he made. He
had succeeded in letting out half a dozen terrified yelps at the start, and
these roused Thor.
Where the water from the peaks fell into the lake there was a precipitous
drop of ten feet, and over this Muskwa shot with a momentum that carried
him twice as far out into the pond. He hit with a big splash, and
disappeared. Down and down he went, where everything was black and cold and
suffocating; then the life-preserver with which nature had endowed him in
the form of his fat brought him to the surface. He began to paddle with all
four feet. It was his first swim, and when he finally dragged himself
ashore he was limp and exhausted.
While he still lay panting and very much frightened, Thor came down from
the rocks. Muskwa's mother had given him a sound cuffing when he got the
porcupine quill in his foot. She had cuffed him for every accident he had
had, because she believed that cuffing was good medicine. Education is
largely cuffed into a bear cub, and she would have given him a fine cuffing
now. But Thor only smelled of him, saw that he was all right, and began to
dig up a dog-tooth violet.
He had not finished the violet when suddenly he stopped. For a half-minute
he stood like a statue. Muskwa jumped and shook himself. Then he listened.
A sound came to both of them. In one slow, graceful movement the grizzly
reared himself to his full height. He faced the north, his ears thrust
forward, the sensitive muscles of his nostrils twitching. He could smell
nothing, but he _heard_!
Over the slopes which they had climbed there had come to him faintly a
sound that was new to him, a sound that had never before been a part of his
life. It was the barking of dogs.
For two minutes Thor sat on his haunches without moving a muscle of his
great body except those twitching thews in his nose.
Deep down in this cup under the mountain it was difficult even for sound to
reach him. Quickly he swung down on all fours and made for the green slope
to the southward, at the top of which the band of sheep had slept during
the preceding night. Muskwa hurried after.
A hundred yards up the slope Thor stopped and turned. Again he reared
himself. Now Muskwa also faced to the north. A sudden downward drift of the
wind brought the barking of the dogs to them clearly.
Less than half a mile away Langdon's pack of trained Airedales were hot on
the scent. Their baying was filled with the fierce excitement which told
Bruce and Langdon, a quarter of a mile behind them, that they were close
upon their prey.
And even more than it thrilled them did the tongueing of the dogs thrill
Thor. Again it was instinct that told him a new enemy had come into his
world. He was not afraid. But that instinct urged him to retreat, and he
went higher until he came to a part of the mountain that was rough and
broken, where once more he halted.
This time he waited. Whatever the menace was it was drawing nearer with the
swiftness of the wind. He could hear it coming up the slope that sheltered
the basin from the valley.
The crest of that slope was just about on a level with Thor's eyes, and as
he looked the leader of the pack came up over the edge of it and stood for
a moment outlined against the sky. The others followed quickly, and for
perhaps thirty seconds they stood rigid on the cap of the hill, looking
down into the basin at their feet and sniffing the heavy scent with which
it was filled.
During those thirty seconds Thor watched his enemies without moving, while
in his deep chest there gathered slowly a low and terrible growl. Not until
the pack swept down into the cup of the mountain, giving full tongue again,
did he continue his retreat. But it was not flight. He was not afraid. He
was going on--because to go on was his business. He was not seeking
trouble; he had no desire even to defend his possession of the meadow and
the little lake under the mountain. There were other meadows and other
lakes, and he was not naturally a lover of fighting. But he was ready to
fight.
He continued to rumble ominously, and in him there was burning a slow and
sullen anger. He buried himself among the rocks; he followed a ledge with
Muskwa slinking close at his heels; he climbed over a huge scarp of rock,
and twisted among boulders half as big as houses. But not once did he go
where Muskwa could not easily follow. Once, when he drew himself from a
ledge to a projecting seam of sandstone higher up, and found that Muskwa
could not climb it, he came down and went another way.
The baying of the dogs was now deep down in the basin. Then it began to
rise swiftly, as if on wings, and Thor knew that the pack was coming up the
green slide. He stopped again, and this time the wind brought their scent
to him full and strong.
It was a scent that tightened every muscle in his great body and set
strange fires burning in him like raging furnaces. With the dogs came also
the _man-smell_!
He travelled upward a little faster now, and the fierce and joyous yelping
of the dogs seemed scarcely a hundred yards away when he entered a small
open space in the wild upheaval of rock. On the mountainside was a wall
that rose perpendicularly. Twenty feet on the other side was a sheer fall
of a hundred feet, and the way ahead was closed with the exception of a
trail scarcely wider than Thor's body by a huge crag of rock that had
fallen from the shoulder of the mountain. The big grizzly led Muskwa close
up to this crag and the break that opened through it, and then turned
suddenly back, so that Muskwa was behind him. In the face of the peril that
was almost upon them a mother-bear would have driven Muskwa into the safety
of a crevice in the rock wall. Thor did not do this. He fronted the danger
that was coming, and reared himself up on his hind quarters.
Twenty feet away the trail he had followed swung sharply around a
projecting bulge in the perpendicular wall, and with eyes that were now
red and terrible Thor watched the trap he had set.
The pack was coming full tongue. Fifty yards beyond the bulge the dogs were
running shoulder to shoulder, and a moment later the first of them rushed
into the arena which Thor had chosen for himself. The bulk of the horde
followed so closely that the first dogs were flung under him as they strove
frantically to stop themselves in time.
With a roar Thor launched himself among them. His great right arm swept out
and inward, and it seemed to Muskwa that he had gathered a half of the pack
under his huge body. With a single crunch of his jaws he broke the back of
the foremost hunter. From a second he tore the head so that the windpipe
trailed out like a red rope.
He rolled himself forward, and before the remaining dogs could recover from
their panic he had caught one a blow that sent him flying over the edge of
the precipice to the rocks a hundred feet below. It had all happened in
half a minute, and in that half-minute the remaining nine dogs had
scattered.
But Langdon's Airedales were fighters. To the last dog they had come of
fighting stock, and Bruce and Metoosin had trained them until they could be
hung up by their ears without whimpering. The tragic fate of three of their
number frightened them no more than their own pursuit had frightened Thor.
Swift as lightning they circled about the grizzly, spreading themselves on
their forefeet, ready to spring aside or backward to avoid sudden rushes,
and giving voice now to that quick, fierce yapping which tells hunters
their quarry is at bay. This was their business--to harass and torment, to
retard flight, to stop their prey again and again until their masters came
to finish the kill. It was a quite fair and thrilling sport for the bear
and the dogs. The man who comes up with the rifle ends it in murder.
But if the dogs had their tricks, Thor also had his. After three or four
vain rushes, in which the Airedales eluded him by their superior quickness,
he backed slowly toward the huge rock beside which Muskwa was crouching,
and as he retreated the dogs advanced.
Their increased barking and Thor's evident inability to drive them away or
tear them to pieces terrified Muskwa more than ever. Suddenly he turned
tail and darted into a crevice in the rock behind him.
Thor continued to back until his great hips touched the stone. Then he
swung his head side wise and looked for the cub. Not a hair of Muskwa was
to be seen. Twice Thor turned his head. After that, seeing that Muskwa was
gone, he continued to retreat until he blocked the narrow passage that was
his back door to safety.
The dogs were now barking like mad. They were drooling at their mouths,
their wiry crests stood up like brushes, and their snarling fangs were
bared to their red gums.
Nearer and nearer they came to him, challenging him to stay, to rush them,
to catch them if he could--and in their excitement they put ten yards of
open space behind them. Thor measured this space, as he had measured the
distance between him and the young bull caribou a few days before. And
then, without so much as a snarl of warning, he darted out upon his enemies
with a suddenness that sent them flying wildly for their lives.
Thor did not stop. He kept on. Where the rock wall bulged out the trail
narrowed to five feet, and he had measured this fact as well as the
distance. He caught the last dog, and drove it down under his paw. As it
was torn to pieces the Airedale emitted piercing cries of agony that
reached Bruce and Langdon as they hurried panting and wind-broken up the
slide that led from the basin.
Thor dropped on his belly in the narrowed trail, and as the pack broke
loose with fresh voice he continued to tear at his victim until the rock
was smeared with blood and hair and entrails. Then he rose to his feet and
looked again for Muskwa. The cub was curled up in a shivering ball two feet
in the crevice. It may be that Thor thought he had gone on up the mountain,
for he lost no time now in retreating from the scene of battle. He had
caught the wind again. Bruce and Langdon were sweating, and their smell
came to him strongly.
For ten minutes Thor paid no attention to the eight dogs yapping at his
heels, except to pause now and then and swing his head about. As he
continued in his retreat the Airedales became bolder, until finally one of
them sprang ahead of the rest and buried his fangs in the grizzly's leg.
This accomplished what barking had failed to do. With another roar Thor
turned and pursued the pack headlong for fifty yards over the back-trail,
and five precious minutes were lost before he continued upward toward the
shoulder of the mountain.
Had the wind been in another direction the pack would have triumphed, but
each time that Langdon and Bruce gained ground the wind warned Thor by
bringing to him the warm odour of their bodies. And the grizzly was careful
to keep that wind from the right quarter. He could have gained the top of
the mountain more easily and quickly by quartering the face of it on a
back-trail, but this would have thrown the wind too far under him. As long
as he held the wind he was safe, unless the hunters made an effort to
checkmate his method of escape by detouring and cutting him off.
It took him half an hour to reach the topmost ridge of rock, from which
point he would have to break cover and reveal himself as he made the last
two or three hundred yards up the shale side of the mountain to the
backbone of the range.
When Thor made this break he put on a sudden spurt of speed that left the
dogs thirty or forty yards behind him. For two or three minutes he was
clearly outlined on the face of the mountain, and during the last minute of
those three he was splendidly profiled against a carpet of pure-white snow,
without a shrub or a rock to conceal him from the eyes below.
Bruce and Langdon saw him at five hundred yards, and began firing. Close
over his head Thor heard the curious ripping wail of the first bullet, and
an instant later came the crack of the rifle.
A second shot sent up a spurt of snow five yards ahead of him. He swung
sharply to the right. This put him broadside to the marksmen. Thor heard a
third shot--and that was all.
While the reports were still echoing among the crags and peaks something
struck Thor a terrific blow on the flat of his skull, five inches back of
his right ear. It was as if a club had descended upon him from out of the
sky. He went down like a log.
It was a glancing shot. It scarcely drew blood, but for a moment it stunned
the grizzly, as a man is dazed by a blow on the end of the chin.
Before he could rise from where he had fallen the dogs were upon him,
tearing at his throat and neck and body. With a roar Thor sprang to his
feet and shook them off. He struck out savagely, and Langdon and Bruce
could hear his bellowing as they stood with fingers on the triggers of
their rifles waiting for the dogs to draw away far enough to give them the
final shots.
Yard by yard Thor worked his way upward, snarling at the frantic pack,
defying the man-smell, the strange thunder, the burning lightning--even
death itself, and five hundred yards below Langdon cursed despairingly as
the dogs hung so close he could not fire.
Up to the very sky-line the blood-thirsting pack shielded Thor. He
disappeared over the summit. The dogs followed. And after that their baying
came fainter and fainter as the big grizzly led them swiftly away from the
menace of man in a long and thrilling race from which more than one was
doomed not to return.