In the afternoon of the second
day Thor stopped in a dump of jackpines under which the ground was strewn
with fallen needles. He began to eat these needles. They did not look good
to Muskwa, but something told the cub that he should do as Thor was doing;
so he licked them up and swallowed them, not knowing that it was nature's
last preparation for his long sleep.
It was four o'clock when they came to the mouth of the deep cavern in which
Thor was born, and here again Thor paused, sniffing up and down the wind,
and waiting for nothing in particular.
It was growing dark. A wailing storm hung over the canyon. Biting winds
swept down from the peaks, and the sky was black and full of snow.
For a minute the grizzly stood with his head and shoulders in the cavern
door. Then he entered. Muskwa followed. Deep back they went through a
pitch-black gloom, and it grew warmer and warmer, and the wailing of the
wind died away until it was only a murmur.
It took Thor at least half an hour to arrange himself just as he wanted to
sleep. Then Muskwa curled up beside him. The cub was very warm and very
comfortable.
That night the storm raged, and the snow fell deep. It came up the canyon
in clouds, and it drifted down through the canyon roof in still thicker
clouds, and all the world was buried deep.
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