The eagle’s fierce eyes were upon these youngsters.  Suddenly he drifted farther away—­a full rifle-shot distance straight in the face of the wind; then he swung gracefully, and came back with the wind.  And as he came, his wings apparently motionless, he gathered greater and greater speed, and shot like a rocket straight for the lambs.  He seemed to have come and gone like a great shadow, and just one plaintive, agonized bleat marked his passing-and two little lambs were left where there had been three.

There was instant commotion on the slide.  The ewes began to run back and forth and bleat excitedly.  The three rams sprang up and stood like rocks, their huge battlemented heads held high as they scanned the depths below them and the peaks above for new danger.

One of them saw Thor, and the deep, grating bleat of warning that rattled out of his throat a hunter could have heard a mile away.  As he gave his danger signal he started down the slide, and in another moment an avalanche of hoofs was clattering down the steep shale slope, loosening small stones and boulders that went tumbling and crashing down the mountain with a din that steadily increased as they set others in motion on the way.  This was all mighty interesting to Muskwa, and he would have stood for a long time looking down for other things to happen if Thor had not led him on.

After a time the Bighorn Highway began to descend into the valley from the upper end of which Thor had been driven by Langdon’s first shots.  They were now six or eight miles north of the timber in which the hunters had made their permanent camp, and headed for the lower tributaries of the Skeena.

Another hour of travel, and the bare shale and gray crags were above them again, and they were on the green slopes.  After the rocks, and the cold winds, and the terrible glare he had seen in the eagle’s eyes, the warm and lovely valley into which they were descending lower and lower was a paradise to Muskwa.

It was evident that Thor had something in his mind.  He was not rambling now.  He cut off the ends and the bulges of the slopes.  With his head hunched low he travelled steadily northward, and a compass could not have marked out a straighter line for the lower waters of the Skeena.  He was tremendously businesslike, and Muskwa, tagging bravely along behind, wondered if he were never going to stop; if there could be anything in the whole wide world finer for a big grizzly and a little tan-faced cub than these wonderful sunlit slopes which Thor seemed in such great haste to leave.

CHAPTER TEN

If it had not been for Langdon, this day of the fight between the two bears would have held still greater excitement and another and deadlier peril for Thor and Muskwa.  Three minutes after the hunters had arrived breathless and sweating upon the scene of the sanguinary conflict Bruce was ready and anxious to continue the pursuit of Thor.  He knew the big grizzly could not be far away; he was certain that Thor had gone up the mountain.  He found signs of the grizzly’s feet in the gravel of the coulee at just about the time Thor and the tan-faced cub struck the Bighorn Highway.