There was no hesitation as he pressed the trigger.  It was a long shot, and the first bullet threw up a cloud of dust fifty feet short of the Airedales.  He fired again, and missed.  The third time his rifle cracked there answered it a sharp yelp of pain which Laagdon himself did not hear.  One of the dogs rolled over and over down the slope.

The reports of the shots alone had not stirred Thor, but now when he saw one of his enemies crumple up and go rolling down the mountain he turned slowly toward the safety of the rocks.  A fourth and then a fifth shot followed, and at the fifth the yelping dogs dropped back toward the coulee, one of them limping with a shattered fore-foot.

Langdon sprang upon the boulder over which he had rested his gun, and his eyes caught the sky-line.  Iskwao had just reached the top.  She paused for a moment and looked down.  Then she disappeared.

Thor was now hidden among the boulders and broken masses of sandstone, following her trail.  Within two minutes after the grizzly disappeared Bruce and Metoosin scrambled up over the edge of the coulee.  From where they stood even the sky-line was within fairly good shooting distance, and Langdon suddenly began shouting excitedly, waving his arms, and pointing downward.

Bruce and Metoosin were caught by his ruse, in spite of the fact that the dogs were again giving fierce tongue close to the rocks among which Thor had gone.  They believed that from where he stood Langdon could see the progress of the bear, and that it was running toward the valley.  Not until they were another hundred yards down the slope did they stop and look back at Langdon to get further directions.  From his rock Langdon was pointing to the sky-line.

Thor was just going over.  He paused for a moment, as Iskwao had stopped, and took one last look at man.

And Langdon, as he saw the last of him, waved his hat and shouted, “Good luck to you, old man—­good luck!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

That night Langdon and Bruce made their new plans, while Metoosin sat aloof, smoking in stolid silence, and gazing now and then at Langdon as if he could not yet bring himself to the point of believing what had happened that afternoon.  Thereafter through many moons Metoosin would never forget to relate to his children and his grandchildren and his friends of the tepee tribes how he had once hunted with a white man who had shot his own dogs to save the life of a grizzly bear.  Langdon was no longer the same old Langdon to him, and after this hunt Metoosin knew that he would never hunt with him again.  For Langdon was keskwao now.  Something had gone wrong in his head.  The Great Spirit had taken away his heart and had given it to a grizzly bear, and over his pipe Metoosin watched him cautiously.  This suspicion was confirmed when he saw Bruce and Langdon making a cage out of a cowhide pannier and realized that the cub was to accompany them on their long journey.  There was no doubt in his mind now.  Langdon was “queer,” and to an Indian that sort of queerness boded no good to man.