“We’ll lay here for a few days an’ not move.  Then we’ll start Metoosin through the valley over there with the dogs, if there’s any left, and we’ll start south through this valley at the same time.  One of us will keep to the slopes an’ the other to the bottom, an’ we’ll travel slow.  Get the idee?

“That grizzly won’t leave his country, an’ Metoosin is pretty near bound to drive him around to us.  We’ll let him do the open hunting an’ we’ll skulk.  The bear can’t get past us both without giving one of us shooting.”

“It sounds good,” agreed Langdon.  “And I’ve got a lame knee that I’m not unwilling to nurse for a few days.”

Scarcely were the words out of Langdon’s mouth when a sudden rattle of hobble-chains and the startled snort of a grazing horse out in the meadow brought them both to their feet.

“Utim!” whispered Metoosin, his dark face aglow in the firelight.

“You’re right—­the dogs,” said Bruce, and he whistled softly.

They heard a movement in the brush near them, and a moment later two of the dogs came into the firelight.  They slunk in, half on their bellies, and as they prostrated themselves at the hunters’ feet a third and a fourth joined them.

They were not like the pack that had gone out that morning.  There were deep hollows in their sides; their wiry crests were flat; they were hard run, and they knew that they were beaten.  Their aggressiveness was gone, and they had the appearance of whipped curs.

A fifth came in out of the night.  He was limping, and dragging a torn foreleg.  The head and throat of one of the others was red with blood.  They all lay flat on their bellies, as if expecting condemnation.

“We have failed,” their attitude said; “we are beaten, and this is all of us that are left.”

Mutely Bruce and Langdon stared at them.  They listened—­waited.  No other came.  And then they looked at each other.

“Two more of them gone,” said Langdon.

Bruce turned to a pile of panniers and canvases and pulled out the dog-leashes.  Up in his tree Muskwa was all atremble.  Within a few yards of him he saw again the white-fanged horde that had chased Thor and had driven him into the rock-crevice.  Of the men he was no longer greatly afraid.  They had attempted him no harm, and he had ceased to quake and snarl when one of them passed near.  But the dogs were monsters.  They had given battle to Thor.  They must have beaten him, for Thor had run away.

The tree to which Muskwa was fastened was not much more than a sapling, and he lay in the saddle of a crotch five feet from the ground when Metoosin led one of the dogs past him.  The Airedale saw him and made a sudden spring that tore the leash from the Indian’s hand.  His leap carried him almost up to Muskwa.  He was about to make another spring when Langdon rushed forward with a fierce cry, caught the dog by his collar, and with the end of the leash gave him a sound beating.  Then he led him away.