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.
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