where it was not difficult for him to kill big game, and where he was
certain that the man-smell would not follow him.

For half an hour after leaving the mass of rocks where he had encountered
Muskwa, Thor lumbered on as if utterly oblivious of the fact that the cub
was following. But he could hear him and smell him.

Muskwa was having a hard time of it. His fat little body and his fat little
legs were unaccustomed to this sort of journeying, but he was a game
youngster, and only twice did he whimper in that half-hour--once he toppled
off a rock into the edge of the creek, and again when he came down too hard
on the porcupine quill in his foot.

At last Thor abandoned the creek and turned up a deep ravine, which he
followed until he came to a dip, or plateau-like plain, halfway up a broad
slope. Here he found a rock on the sunny side of a grassy knoll, and
stopped. It may be that little Muskwa's babyish friendship, the caress of
his soft little red tongue at just the psychological moment, and his
perseverance in following Thor had all combined to touch a responsive chord
in the other's big brute heart, for after nosing about restlessly for a few
moments Thor stretched himself out beside the rock. Not until then did the
utterly exhausted little tan-faced cub lie down, but when he did lie down
he was so dead tired that he was sound asleep in three minutes.

Twice again during the early part of the afternoon the _sapoos oowin_
worked on Thor, and he began to feel hungry. It was not the sort of hunger
to be appeased by ants and grubs, or even gophers and whistlers. It may be,
too, that he guessed how nearly starved little Muskwa was. The cub had not
once opened his eyes, and he still lay in his warm pool of sunshine when
Thor made up his mind to go on.