len and
shattered masses of sandstone crag. The sky-line was not more than three
hundred yards above him. He looked up. Iskwao was among the rocks, and here
was the place to fight. The dogs were close upon him now. They were coming
up the last stretch of the coulee, baying loudly. Thor turned about, and
waited for them.

Half a mile to the south, looking through his glasses, Langdon saw Thor,
and at almost the same instant the dogs appeared over the edge of the
coulee. He had ridden halfway up the mountain; from that point he had
climbed higher, and was following a well-beaten sheep trail at about the
same altitude as Thor. From where he stood the valley lay under his glasses
for miles. He did not have far to look to discover Bruce and the Indian.
They were dismounting at the foot of the coulee, and as he gazed they ran
quickly into it and disappeared.

Again Langdon swung back to Thor. The dogs were holding him now, and he
knew there was no chance of the grizzly killing them in that open space.
Then he saw movement among the rocks higher up, and a low cry of
understanding broke from his lips as he made out Iskwao climbing steadily
toward the ragged peak. He knew that this second bear was a female. The big
grizzly--her mate--had stopped to fight. And there was no hope for him if
the dogs succeeded in holding him for a matter of ten or fifteen minutes.
Bruce and Metoosin would appear in that time over the rim of the coulee at
a range of less than a hundred yards!

Langdon thrust his binoculars in their case and started at a run along the
sheep trail. For two hundred yards his progress was easy, and then the
patch broke into a thousand individual tracks on a slope of soft and
slippery shale, and it took him five minutes to make the next fifty yards.

The trail hardened again. He ran on pantingly, and for another five minutes
the shoulder of a ridge hid Thor and the dogs from him. When he came over
that ridge and ran fifty yards, down the farther side of it, he stopped
short. Further progress was barred by a steep ravine. He was five hundred
yards from where Thor stood with his back to the rocks and his huge head to
the pack.

Even as he looked, struggling to get breath enough to shout, Langdon
expected to see Bruce and Metoosin appear out of the coulee. It flashed
upon him then that even if he could make them hear it would be impossible
for them to understand him. Bruce would not guess that he wanted to spare
the bea