By the time he had
scrambled up again Porky was four or five feet beyond him and totally
absorbed in his travel.
The adventure of the sheep-trail was not yet quite over, for scarcely had
Porky maneuvered himself to safety when around the edge of the big boulder
above appeared a badger, hot on the fresh and luscious scent of his
favourite dinner, a porcupine. This worthless outlaw of the mountains was
three times as large as Muskwa, and every ounce of him was fighting muscle
and bone and claw and sharp teeth. He had a white mark on his nose and
forehead; his legs were short and thick; his tail was bushy, and the claws
on his front feet were almost as long as a bear's. Thor greeted him with an
immediate growl of warning, and the badger scooted back up the trail in
fear of his life.
Meanwhile Porky lumbered slowly along in quest of new feeding-grounds,
talking and singing to himself, forgetting entirely what had happened a
minute or two before, and unconscious of the fact that Thor had saved him
from a death as certain as though he had fallen over a thousand-foot
precipice.
For nearly a mile Thor and Muskwa followed the Bighorn Highway before its
winding course brought them at last to the very top of the range. They were
fully three-quarters of a mile above the creek-bottom, and so narrow in
places was the crest of the mountain along which the sheep-trail led that
they could look down into both valleys.
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