Bruce heard it as he fired his sixth unavailing shot at seven hundred
yards. Langdon was reloading. For fifteen seconds Thor offered himself
openly, roaring his defiance, challenging the enemy he could no longer see;
and then at Langdon's seventh shot, a whiplash of fire raked his back, and
in strange dread of this lightning which he could not fight, Thor continued
up over the break. He heard other rifle shots, which were like a new kind
of thunder. But he was not hit again. Painfully he began the descent into
the next valley.
Thor knew that he was hurt, but he could not comprehend that hurt. Once in
the descent he paused for a few moments, and a little pool of blood dripped
upon the ground under his foreleg. He sniffed at it suspiciously and
wonderingly.
He swung eastward, and a little later he caught a fresh taint of the
man-smell in the air. The wind was bringing it to him now, and in spite of
the fact that he wanted to lie down and nurse his wound he ambled on a
little faster, for he had learned one thing that he would never forget: the
man-smell and his hurt had come together.
He reached the bottoms, and buried himself in the thick timber; and then,
crossing this timber, he came to a creek. Perhaps a hundred times he had
travelled up and down this creek. It was the main trail that led from one
half of his range to the other.
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