t to do when the great beast lunged
forward. He would fling himself over the edge. Down below there was one
chance in a thousand for life. There might be a ledge or a projecting spur
to catch him.

And Thor!

Suddenly--unexpectedly--he had come upon man! This was the creature that
had hunted him, this was the creature that had hurt him--and it was so near
that he could reach out with his paw and crush it! And how weak, and white,
and shrinking it looked now! Where was its strange thunder? Where was its
burning lightning? Why did it make no sound?

Even a dog would have done more than this creature, for the dog would have
shown its fangs; it would have snarled, it would have fought. But this
thing that was man did nothing. And a great, slow doubt swept through
Thor's massive head. Was it really this shrinking, harmless, terrified
thing that had hurt him? He smelled the man-smell. It was thick. And yet
this time there came with it no hurt.

And then, slowly again, Thor came down to all fours. Steadily he looked at
the man.

Had Langdon moved then he would have died. But Thor was not, like man, a
murderer. For another half-minute he waited for a hurt, for some sign of
menace. Neither came, and he was puzzled. His nose swept the ground, and
Langdon saw the dust rise where the grizzly's hot breath stirred it. And
after that, for another long and terrible thirty seconds, the bear and the
man looked at each other.

Then very slowly--and doubtfully--Thor half turned. He growled. His lips
drew partly back. Yet he saw no reason to fight, for that shrinking,
white-faced pigmy crouching on the rock made no movement to offer him
battle. He saw that he could not go on, for the ledge was blocked by the
mountain wall. Had there been a trail the story might have been different
for Langdon. As it was, Thor disappeared slowly in the direction from which
he had come, his great head hung low, his long claws click, click, clicking
like ivory castanets as he went.

Not until then did it seem to Langdon that he breathed again, and that his
heart resumed its beating. He gave a great sobbing gasp. He rose to his
feet, and his legs seemed weak. He waited--one minute, two, three; and then
he stole cautiously to the twist in the ledge around which Thor had gone.

The rocks were clear, and he began to retrace his own steps toward the
meadowy break, watching and listening, and still clutching the broken parts
of his rifle. When he came to th