followed the day before. The cub felt twice as big and fully twice as
strong as yesterday, and he no longer was obsessed by that uncomfortable
yearning for his mother's milk. Thor had graduated him quickly, and he was
a meat-eater. And he knew they were returning to where they had feasted
last night.

They had descended half the distance of the slope when the wind brought
something to Thor. A deep-chested growl rolled out of him as he stopped for
a moment, the thick ruff about his neck bristling ominously. The scent he
had caught came from the direction of his cache, and it was an odour which
he was not in a humour to tolerate in this particular locality. Strongly he
smelled the presence of another bear. This would not have excited him under
ordinary conditions, and it would not have excited him now had the presence
been that of a female bear. But the scent was that of a he-bear, and it
drifted strongly up a rock-cut ravine that ran straight down toward the
balsam patch in which he had hidden the caribou.

Thor stopped to ask himself no questions. Growling under his breath, he
began to descend so swiftly that Muskwa had great difficulty in keeping up
with him. Not until they came to the edge of the plain that overlooked the
lake and the balsams did they stop. Muskwa's little jaws hung open as he
panted. Then his ears pricked forward, he stared, and suddenly every muscle
in his small body became rigid.

Seventy-five yards below them their cache was being outraged. The robber
was a huge black bear. He was a splendid outlaw. He was, perhaps, three
hundred pounds lighter than Thor, but he stood almost as high, and in the
sunlight his coat shone with the velvety gloss of sable--the biggest and
boldest bear that had entered Thor's domain in many a day. He had pulled
the caribou carcass from its hiding-place and was eating as Thor and Muskwa
looked down on him.

After a moment Muskwa peered up questioningly at Thor. "What are we going
to do?" he seemed to ask. "He's got our dinner!"

Slowly and very deliberately Thor began picking his way down those last
seventy-five yards. He seemed to be in no hurry bow.

When he reached the edge of the meadow, perhaps thirty or forty yards from
the big invader, he stopped again. There was nothing particularly ugly in
his attitude, but the ruff about his shoulders was bigger than Muskwa had
ever seen it before.

The black looked up from his feast, and for a full half minute they eyed