ng in stolid silence, and gazing now and then at Langdon as if
he could not yet bring himself to the point of believing what had happened
that afternoon. Thereafter through many moons Metoosin would never forget
to relate to his children and his grandchildren and his friends of the
tepee tribes how he had once hunted with a white man who had shot his own
dogs to save the life of a grizzly bear. Langdon was no longer the same old
Langdon to him, and after this hunt Metoosin knew that he would never hunt
with him again. For Langdon was _keskwao_ now. Something had gone wrong in
his head. The Great Spirit had taken away his heart and had given it to a
grizzly bear, and over his pipe Metoosin watched him cautiously. This
suspicion was confirmed when he saw Bruce and Langdon making a cage out of
a cowhide pannier and realized that the cub was to accompany them on their
long journey. There was no doubt in his mind now. Langdon was "queer," and
to an Indian that sort of queerness boded no good to man.

The next morning at sunrise the outfit was ready for its long trail into
the northland. Bruce and Langdon led the way up the slope and over the
divide into the valley where they had first encountered Thor, the train
filing picturesquely behind them, with Metoosin bringing up the rear. In
his cowhide pannier rode Muskwa.

Langdon was satisfied and happy.

"It was the best hunt of my life," he said to Bruce. "I'll never be sorry
we let him live."

"You're the doctor," said Bruce rather irreverently. "If I had my way about
it his hide would be back there on Dishpan. Almost any tourist down on the
line of rail would jump for it at a hundred dollars."

"He's worth several thousand to me alive," replied Langdon, with which
enigmatic retort he dropped behind to see how Muskwa was riding.

The cub was rolling and pitching about in his pannier like a raw amateur
in a howdab on an elephant's back, and after contemplating him for a few
moments Langdon caught up with Bruce again.

Half a dozen times during the next two or three hours he visited Muskwa,
and each time that he returned to Bruce he was quieter, as if debating
something with himself.

It was nine o'clock when they came to what was undoubtedly the end of
Thor's valley. A mountain rose up squarely in the face of it, and the
stream they were following swung sharply to the westward into a narrow
canyon. On the east rose a green and undulating slope up which the horses
could