t, but how he was going to get it out of that pool
of water puzzled and interested him in spite of his weariness.

Thor stretched himself out on his belly, his head and right paw well over
the jam. He now put his paw a foot into the water and held it there very
quietly. He could see clearly to the bottom of the stream. For a few
moments he saw only this bottom, a few sticks, and the protruding end of a
limb. Then a long slim shadow moved slowly under him--a fifteen-inch
trout. It was too deep for him, and Thor did not make an excited plunge.

Patiently he waited, and very soon this patience was rewarded. A beautiful
red-spotted trout floated out from under the scum, and so suddenly that
Muskwa gave a yelp of terror, Thor's huge paw sent a shower of water a
dozen feet into the air, and the fish landed with a thump within three feet
of the cub. Instantly Muskwa was upon it. His sharp teeth dug into it as it
flopped and struggled.

Thor rose on the logs, but when he saw that Muskwa had taken possession of
the fish, he resumed his former position. Muskwa was just finishing his
first real kill when a second spout of water shot upward and another trout
pirouetted shoreward through the air. This time Thor followed quickly, for
he was hungry.

It was a glorious feast they had that early afternoon beside the shaded
creek. Five times Thor knocked fish out from under the scum, but for the
life of him Muskwa could not eat more than his first trout.

For several hours after their dinner they lay in a cool, hidden spot close
to the log-jam. Muskwa did not sleep soundly. He was beginning to
understand that life was now largely a matter of personal responsibility
with him, and his ears had begun to attune themselves to sound. Whenever
Thor moved or heaved a deep sigh, Muskwa knew it. After that day's Marathon
with the grizzly he was filled with uneasiness--a fear that he might lose
his big friend and food-killer, and he was determined that the parent he
had adopted should have no opportunity of slipping away from him unheard
and unseen. But Thor had no intention of deserting his little comrade. In
fact, he was becoming quite fond of Muskwa.

It was not alone his hunger for fish or fear of his enemies that was
bringing Thor into the lower country of the Babine waterways. For a week
past there had been in him a steadily growing unrest, and it had reached
its climax in these last two or three days of battle and flight. He was
filled