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.
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