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.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In his hiding-place Muskwa heard the last sounds of the battle on the ledge. The crevice was a V-shaped crack in the rock, and he had wedged himself as far back in this as he could. He saw Thor pa.s.s the opening of his refuge after he had killed the fourth dog; he heard the click, click, click of his claws as he retreated up the trail; and at last he knew that the grizzly was gone, and that the enemy had followed him.
Still he was afraid to come out. These strange pursuers that had come up out of the valley had filled him with a deadly terror. Pipoonaskoos had not made him afraid. Even the big black bear that Thor killed had not terrified him as these red-lipped, white-fanged strangers had frightened him. So he remained in his crevice, crowded as far back as he could get, like a wad shoved in a gun-barrel.
He could still hear the tongueing of the dogs when other and nearer sounds alarmed him. Langdon and Bruce came rushing around the bulge in the mountain wall, and at sight of the dead dogs they stopped. Langdon cried out in horror.
He was not more than twenty feet from Muskwa. For the first time the cub heard human voices; for the first time the sweaty odour of men filled his nostrils, and he scarcely breathed in his new fear. Then one of the hunters stood directly in front of the crack in which he was hidden, and he saw his first man. A moment later the men, too, were gone.
Later Muskwa heard the shots. After that the barking of the dogs grew more and more distant until finally he could not hear them at all. It was about three o"clock--the siesta hour in the mountains, and it was very quiet.
For a long time Muskwa did not move. He listened. And he heard nothing.
Another fear was growing in him now--the fear of losing Thor. With every breath he drew he was hoping that Thor would return. For an hour he remained wedged in the rock. Then he heard a _cheep, cheep, cheep_, and a tiny striped rock-rabbit came out on the ledge where Muskwa could see him and began cautiously investigating one of the slain Airedales. This gave Muskwa courage. He p.r.i.c.ked up his ears a bit. He whimpered softly, as if beseeching recognition and friendship of the one tiny creature that was near him in this dreadful hour of loneliness and fear.
Inch by inch he crawled out of his hiding-place. At last his little round, furry head was out, and he looked about him. The trail was clear, and he advanced toward the rock-rabbit. With a shrill chatter the striped mite darted for its own stronghold, and Muskwa was alone again.
For a few moments he stood undecided, sniffing the air that was heavy with the scent of blood, of man, and of Thor; then he turned up the mountain.
He knew Thor had gone in that direction, and if little Muskwa possessed a mind and a soul they were filled with but one desire now--to overtake his big friend and protector. Even fear of dogs and men, unknown quant.i.ties in his life until to-day, was now overshadowed by the fear that he had lost Thor.
He did not need eyes to follow the trail. It was warm under his nose, and he started in the zigzag ascent of the mountain as fast as he could go.
There were places where progress was difficult for his short legs, but he kept on valiantly and hopefully, encouraged by Thor"s fresh scent.
It took him a good hour to reach the beginning of the naked shale that reached up to the belt of snow and the sky-line, and it was four o"clock when he started up those last three hundred yards between him and the mountain-top. Up there he believed he would find Thor. But he was afraid, and he continued to whimper softly to himself as he dug his little claws bravely into the shale.
Muskwa did not look up to the crest of the peak again after he had started.
To have done that it would have been necessary for him to stop and turn sidewise, for the ascent was steep. And so, when Muskwa was halfway to the top, it happened that he did not see Langdon and Bruce as they came over the sky-line; and he could not smell them, for the wind was blowing up instead of down. Oblivious of their presence he came to the snow-belt.
Joyously he smelled of Thor"s huge footprints, and followed them. And above him Bruce and Langdon waited, crouched low, their guns on the ground, and each with his thick flannel shirt stripped off and held ready in his hands. When Muskwa was less than twenty yards from them they came tearing down upon him like an avalanche.
Not until Bruce was upon him did Muskwa recover himself sufficiently to move. He saw and realized danger in the last fifth of a second, and as Bruce flung himself forward, his shirt outspread like a net, Muskwa darted to one side. Sprawling on his face, Bruce gathered up a shirtful of snow and clutched it to his breast, believing for a moment that he had the cub, and at this same instant Langdon made a drive that entangled him with his friend"s long legs and sent him turning somersaults down the snow-slide.
Muskwa bolted down the mountain as fast as his short legs could carry him.
In another second Bruce was after him, and Langdon joined in ten feet behind.
Suddenly Muskwa made a sharp turn, and the momentum with which Bruce was coming carried him thirty or forty feet below him, where the lanky mountaineer stopped himself only by doubling up like a jack-knife and digging toes, hands, elbows, and even his shoulders in the soft shale.
Langdon had switched, and was hot after Muskwa. He flung himself face downward, shirt outspread, just as the cub made another turn, and when he rose to his feet his face was scratched and he spat half a handful of dirt and shale out of his mouth.
Unfortunately for Muskwa his second turn brought him straight down to Bruce, and before he could turn again he was enveloped in sudden darkness and suffocation, and over him there rang out a fiendish and triumphant yell.
"I got "im!" shouted Bruce.
Inside the shirt Muskwa scratched and bit and snarled, and Bruce was having his hands full when Langdon ran down with the second shirt. Very shortly Muskwa was trussed up like a papoose. His legs and his body were swathed so tightly that he could not move them. His head was not covered. It was the only part of him that showed, and the only part of him that he could move, and it looked so round and frightened and funny that for a minute or two Langdon and Bruce forgot their disappointments and losses of the day and laughed.
Then Langdon sat down on one side of Muskwa, and Bruce on the other, and they filled and lighted their pipes. Muskwa could not even kick an objection.
"A couple of husky hunters we are," said Langdon then. "Come out for a grizzly and end up with that!"
He looked at the cub. Muskwa was eying him so earnestly that Langdon sat in mute wonder for a moment, and then slowly took his pipe from his mouth and stretched out a hand.
"Cubby, cubby, nice cubby," he cajoled softly.
Muskwa"s tiny ears were perked forward. His bright eyes were like gla.s.s.
Bruce, un.o.bserved by Langdon, was grinning expectantly.
"Cubby won"t bite--no--no--nice little cubby--we won"t hurt cubby--"
The next instant a wild yell startled the mountain-tops as Muskwa"s needle-like teeth sank into one of Langdon"s fingers. Bruce"s howls of joy would have frightened game a mile away.
"You little devil!" gasped Langdon, and then, as he sucked his wounded finger, he laughed with Bruce. "He"s a sport--a dead game sport," he added.
"We"ll call him Spitfire, Bruce. By George, I"ve wanted a cub like that ever since I first came into the mountains. I"m going to take him home with me! Ain"t he a funny looking little cuss?"
Muskwa shifted his head, the only part of him that was not as stiffly immovable as a mummy, and scrutinized Bruce. Langdon rose to his feet and looked back to the sky-line. His face was set and hard.
"Four dogs!" he said, as if speaking to himself. "Three down below--and one up there!" He was silent for a moment, and then said: "I can"t understand it, Bruce. They"ve cornered fifty bears for us, and until to-day we"ve never lost a dog."
Bruce was looping a buckskin thong about Muskwa"s middle, making of it a sort of handle by which he could carry the cub as he would have conveyed a pail of water or a slab of bacon. He stood up, and Muskwa dangled at the end of his string.
"We"ve run up against a killer," he said. "An" a meat-killin" grizzly is the worst animal on the face of the earth when it comes to a fight or a hunt. The dogs"ll never hold "im, Jimmy, an" if it don"t get dark pretty soon there won"t none of the bunch come back. They"ll quit at dark--if there"s any left. The old fellow"s got our wind, an" you can bet he knows what knocked him down up there on the snow. He"s hikin"--an" hikin" fast.
When we see "im ag"in it"ll be twenty miles from here."
Langdon went up for the guns. When he returned Bruce led the way down the mountain, carrying Muskwa by the buckskin thong. For a few moments they paused on the blood-stained ledge of rock where Thor had wreaked his vengeance upon his tormentors. Langdon bent over the dog the grizzly had decapitated.
"This is Biscuits," he said. "And we always thought she was the one coward of the bunch. The other two are Jane and Tober; old Fritz is up on the summit. Three of the best dogs we had, Bruce!"
Bruce was looking over the ledge. He pointed downward.
"There"s another--pitched clean off the face o" the mount"in!" he gasped.
"Jimmy, that"s five!"
Langdon"s fists were clenched tightly as he stared over the edge of the precipice. A choking sound came from his throat. Bruce understood its meaning. From where they stood they could see a black patch on the upturned breast of the dog a hundred feet under them. Only one of the pack was marked like that. It was Langdon"s favourite. He had made her a camp pet.