It was quite natural that in these exciting hours he should forget Muskwa almost entirely.  At least ten times before sunset he crossed and recrossed the creek, and the disgusted and almost ready-to-quit cub waded and swam and floundered after him until he was nearly drowned.  The tenth or dozenth time Thor forded the stream Muskwa revolted and followed along on his own side.  It was not long before the grizzly returned.

It was soon after this, just as the sun was setting, that the unexpected happened.  What little wind there was suddenly swung straight into the east, and from the western slopes half a mile away it brought a scent that held Thor motionless in his tracks for perhaps half a minute, and then set him off on that ambling run which is the ungainliest gait of all four-footed creatures.

Muskwa rolled after him like a ball, pegging away for dear life, but losing ground at every jump.  In that half-mile stretch he would have lost Thor altogether if the grizzly had not stopped near the bottom of the first slope to take fresh reckonings.  When he started up the slope Muskwa could see him, and with a yelping cry for him to wait a minute set after him again.

Two or three hundred yards up the mountainside the slope shelved downward into a hollow, or dip, and nosing about in this dip, questing the air as Thor had quested it, was the beautiful she-grizzly from over the range.  With her was one of her last year’s cubs.  Thor was within fifty yards of her when he came over the crest.  He stopped.  He looked at her.  And Iskwao, “the female,” looked at him.

Then followed true bear courtship.  All haste, all eagerness, all desire for his mate seemed to have left Thor; and if Iskwao had been eager and yearning she was profoundly indifferent now.  For two or three minutes Thor stood looking casually about, and this gave Muskwa time to come up and perch himself beside him, expecting another fight.

As though Thor was a thousand miles or so from her thoughts, Iskwao turned over a flat rock and began hunting for grubs and ants, and not to be outdone in this stoic unconcern Thor pulled up a bunch of grass and swallowed it.  Iskwao moved a step or two, and Thor moved a step or two, and as if purely by accident their steps were toward each other.

Muskwa was puzzled.  The older cub was puzzled.  They sat on their haunches like two dogs, one three times as big as the other, and wondered what was going to happen.

It took Thor and Iskwao five minutes to arrive within five feet of each other, and then very decorously they smelled noses.

The year-old cub joined the family circle.  He was of just the right age to have an exceedingly long name, for the Indians called him Pipoonaskoos—­ “the yearling.”  He came boldly up to Thor and his mother.  For a moment Thor did not seem to notice him.  Then his long right arm shot out in a sudden swinging upper-cut that lifted Pipoonaskoos clean off the ground and sent him spinning two-thirds of the distance up to Muskwa.