An early July rain at three o’clock in the morning in the northern British Columbia mountains is not as warm as it might be, and for the greater part of an hour Langdon and Bruce continued to gather fuel and dry their blankets and clothing.  It was five o’clock before they had breakfast, and a little after six when they started with their two saddles and single pack up the valley.  Bruce had the satisfaction of reminding Langdon that his prediction had come true for a glorious day followed the thunder shower.

Under them the meadows were dripping.  The valley purred louder with the music of the swollen streamlets.  From the mountain-tops a half of last night’s snow was gone, and to Langdon the flowers seemed taller and more beautiful.  The air that drifted through the valley was laden with the sweetness and freshness of the morning, and over and through it all the sun shone in a warm and golden sea.

They headed up the creek-bottom, bending over from their saddles to look at every strip of sand they passed for tracks.  They had not gone a quarter of a mile when Bruce gave a sudden exclamation, and stopped.  He pointed to a round patch of sand in which Thor had left one of his huge footprints.  Langdon dismounted and measured it.

“It’s he!” he cried, and there was a thrill of excitement in his voice.  “Hadn’t we better go on without the horses, Bruce?”

The mountaineer shook his head.  But before he voiced an opinion he got down from his horse and scanned the sides of the mountains ahead of them through his long telescope.  Langdon used his double-barrelled hunting glass.  They discovered nothing.

“He’s still in the creek-bottom, an’ he’s probably three or four miles ahead,” said Bruce.  “We’ll ride on a couple o’ miles an’ find a place good for the horses.  The grass an’ bushes will be dry then.”

It was easy to follow Thor’s course after this, for he had hung close to the creek.  Within three or four hundred yards of the great mass of boulders where the grizzly had come upon the tan-faced cub was a small copse of spruce in the heart of a grassy dip, and here the hunters stripped and hobbled their horses.  Twenty minutes later they had come up cautiously to the soft carpet of sand where Thor and Muskwa had become acquainted.  The heavy rain had obliterated the cub’s tiny footprints, but the sand was cut up by the grizzly’s tracks.  The packer’s teeth gleamed as he looked at Langdon.

“He ain’t very far,” he whispered.  “Shouldn’t wonder if he spent the night pretty close an’ he’s mooshing on just ahead of us.”

He wet a finger and held it above his head to get the wind.  He nodded significantly.

“We’d better get up on the slopes,” he said.

They made their way around the end of the boulders, holding their guns in readiness, and headed for a small coulee that promised an easy ascent of the first slope.  At the mouth of this both paused again.  Its bottom was covered with sand, and in this sand were the tracks of another bear.  Bruce dropped on his knees.