“Now what the devil do you think of that?” he said, and rose slowly to his feet.  “He ain’t asleep—­he’s dead!”

Langdon ran up to him, and they went around the end of the rock.  Bruce still held the knife in his hand and there was an odd expression in his face—­a look that put troubled furrows between his eyes as he stood for a moment without speaking.

“I never see anything like that before,” he said, slowly slipping his knife in its sheath.  “It’s a she-bear, an’ she had cubs—­pretty young cubs, too, from the looks o’ her.’

“She was after a whistler, and undermined the rock,” added Langdon.  “Crushed to death, eh, Bruce?”

Bruce nodded.

“I never see anything like it before,” he repeated.  “I’ve wondered why they didn’t get killed by diggin’ under the rocks—­but I never see it.  Wonder where the cubs are?  Poor little devils!”

He was on his knees examining the dead mother’s teats.

“She didn’t have more’n two—­mebby one,” he said, rising.  “About three months old.”

“And they’ll starve?”

“If there was only one he probably will.  The little cuss had so much milk he didn’t have to forage for himself.  Cubs is a good deal like babies—­you can wean ’em early or you can ha’f grow ’em on pap.  An’ this is what comes of runnin’ off an’ leavin’ your babies alone,” moralized Bruce.  “If you ever git married, Jimmy, don’t you let yo’r wife do it.  Sometimes th’ babies burn up or break their necks!”

Again he turned along the crest of the slope, his eyes once more searching the valley, and Langdon followed a step behind him, wondering what had become of the cub.

And Muskwa, still slumbering on the rock-ledge with Thor, was dreaming of the mother who lay crushed under the rock on the slope, and as he dreamed he whimpered softly.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The ledge where Thor and Muskwa lay caught the first gleams of the morning sun, and as the sun rose higher the ledge grew warmer and warmer, and Thor, when he awoke, merely stretched himself and made no effort to rise.  After his wounds and the sapoos oowin and the feast in the valley he was feeling tremendously fine and comfortable, and he was in no very great haste to leave this golden pool of sunlight.  For a long time he looked steadily and curiously at Muskwa.  In the chill of the night the little cub had snuggled up close between the warmth of Thor’s huge forearms, and still lay there, whimpering in his babyish way as he dreamed.

After a time Thor did something that he had never been guilty of before—­he sniffed gently at the soft little ball between his paws, and just once his big flat red tongue touched the cub’s face; and Muskwa, perhaps still dreaming of his mother, snuggled closer.  As little white children have won the hearts of savages who were about to slay them, so Muskwa had come strangely into the life of Thor.