All that day the cub remained in the flower-strewn meadows under the
slope; it was very pleasant in the sunshine, and he found more than one
patch of the bulbous roots he liked. He dug, and he filled himself, and he
took a nap in the afternoon; but when the sun began to go down and the
heavy shadows of the mountain darkened the valley he began to grow afraid.
He was still a very small baby of a cub, and only that one dreadful night
after his mother had died had he spent entirely alone. Thor had replaced
mother, and Langdon had taken the place of Thor, so that until now he had
never felt the loneliness and emptiness of darkness. He crawled under a
clump of thorn close to the trail, and continued to wait, and listen, and
sniff expectantly. The stars came out clear and brilliant, but to-night
their lure was not strong enough to call him forth. Not until dawn did he
steal out cautiously from his shelter of thorn.
The sun gave him courage and confidence again and he began wandering back
through the valley, the scent of the horse-trail growing fainter and
fainter until at last it disappeared entirely. That day Muskwa ate some
grass and a few dog-tooth violet roots, and when the second night came he
was abreast of the slope over which the outfit had come from the valley in
which were Thor and Iskwao.
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