CHAPTER SEVEN


Langdon and Bruce crossed the summit into the westward valley in the
afternoon of the day Thor left the clay wallow. It was two o'clock when
Bruce turned back for the three horses, leaving Langdon on a high ridge to
scour the surrounding country through his glasses. For two hours after the
packer returned with the outfit they followed slowly along the creek above
which the grizzly had travelled, and when they camped for the night they
were still two or three miles from the spot where Thor came upon Muskwa.
They had not yet found his tracks in the sand of the creek bottom. Yet
Bruce was confident. He knew that Thor had been following the crests of the
slopes.

"If you go back out of this country an' write about bears, don't make a
fool o' yo'rself like most of the writin' fellows, Jimmy," he said, as they
sat back to smoke their pipes after supper. "Two years ago I took a
natcherlist out for a month, an' he was so tickled he said 'e'd send me a
bunch o' books about bears an' wild things. He did! I read 'em. I laughed
at first, an' then I got mad an' made a fire of 'em. Bears is cur'ous.
There's a mighty lot of interestin' things to say about 'em without making
a fool o' yo'rself. There sure is!"

Langdon nodded.

"One has to hunt and kill and hunt and kill for years before he discovers
the real pleasure in big game stalking," he said slowly, looking into the
fire. "And when he comes down to that real pleasure, the part of it that
absorbs him heart and soul, he finds that after all the big thrill isn't in