Thor stopped to ask himself no questions.  Growling under his breath, he began to descend so swiftly that Muskwa had great difficulty in keeping up with him.  Not until they came to the edge of the plain that overlooked the lake and the balsams did they stop.  Muskwa’s little jaws hung open as he panted.  Then his ears pricked forward, he stared, and suddenly every muscle in his small body became rigid.

Seventy-five yards below them their cache was being outraged.  The robber was a huge black bear.  He was a splendid outlaw.  He was, perhaps, three hundred pounds lighter than Thor, but he stood almost as high, and in the sunlight his coat shone with the velvety gloss of sable—­the biggest and boldest bear that had entered Thor’s domain in many a day.  He had pulled the caribou carcass from its hiding-place and was eating as Thor and Muskwa looked down on him.

After a moment Muskwa peered up questioningly at Thor.  “What are we going to do?” he seemed to ask.  “He’s got our dinner!”

Slowly and very deliberately Thor began picking his way down those last seventy-five yards.  He seemed to be in no hurry bow.

When he reached the edge of the meadow, perhaps thirty or forty yards from the big invader, he stopped again.  There was nothing particularly ugly in his attitude, but the ruff about his shoulders was bigger than Muskwa had ever seen it before.

The black looked up from his feast, and for a full half minute they eyed each other.  In a slow, pendulum-like motion the grizzly’s huge head swung from side to side; the black was as motionless as a sphinx.

Four or five feet from Thor stood Muskwa.  In a small-boyish sort of way he knew that something was going to happen soon, and in that same small-boyish way he was ready to put his stub of a tail between his legs and flee with Thor, or advance and fight with him.  His eyes were curiously attracted by that pendulum-like swing of Thor’s head.  All nature understood that swing.  Man had learned to understand it.  “Look out when a grizzly rolls his head!” is the first commandment of the bear-hunter in the mountains.

The big black understood, and like other bears in Thor’s domain, he should have slunk a little backward, turned about and made his exit.  Thor gave him ample time.  But the black was a new bear in the valley—­and he was not only that:  he was a powerful bear, and unwhipped; and he had overlorded a range of his own.  He stood his ground.

The first growl of menace that passed between the two came from the black.

Again Thor advanced, slowly and deliberately—­straight for the robber.  Muskwa followed halfway and then stopped and squatted himself on his belly.  Ten feet from the carcass Thor paused again; and now his huge head swung more swiftly back and forth, and a low rumbling thunder came from between his half-open jaws.  The black’s ivory fangs snarled; Muskwa whined.

Again Thor advanced, a foot at a time, and now his gaping jaws almost touched the ground, and his huge body was hunched low.