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.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145