The big grizzly was perhaps six hundred yards up the slope, and pretty close to three hundred yards from the nearest point reached by the gully.

Bruce spoke in a whisper now.

“You go up an’ do the stalkin’, Jimmy,” he said.  “That bear’s goin’ to do one of two things if you miss or only wound ‘im—­one o’ three, mebbe:  he’s going to investigate you, or he’s going up over the break, or he’s comin’ down in the valley—­this way.  We can’t keep ‘im from goin’ over the break, an’ if he tackles you—­just summerset it down the gully.  You can beat ’im out.  He’s most apt to come this way if you don’t get ’im, so I’ll wait here.  Good luck to you, Jimmy!”

With this he went out and crouched behind a rock, where he could keep an eye on the grizzly, and Langdon began to climb quietly up the boulder-strewn gully.

CHAPTER THREE

Of all the living creatures in this sleeping valley, Thor was the busiest.  He was a bear with individuality, you might say.  Like some people, he went to bed very early; he began to get sleepy in October, and turned in for his long nap in November.  He slept until April, and usually was a week or ten days behind other bears in waking.  He was a sound sleeper, and when awake he was very wide awake.  During April and May he permitted himself to doze considerably in the warmth of sunny rocks, but from the beginning of June until the middle of September he closed his eyes in real sleep just about four hours out of every twelve.

He was very busy as Langdon began his cautious climb up the gully.  He had succeeded in getting his gopher, a fat, aldermanic old patriarch who had disappeared in one crunch and a gulp, and he was now absorbed in finishing off his day’s feast with an occasional fat, white grub and a few sour ants captured from under stones which he turned over with his paw.

In his search after these delicacies Thor used his right paw in turning over the rocks.  Ninety-nine out of every hundred bears—­probably a hundred and ninety-nine out of every two hundred—­are left-handed; Thor was right-handed.  This gave him an advantage in fighting, in fishing, and in stalking meat, for a grizzly’s right arm is longer than his left—­so much longer that if he lost his sixth sense of orientation he would be constantly travelling in a circle.

In his quest Thor was headed for the gully.  His huge head hung close to the ground.  At short distances his vision was microscopic in its keenness; his olfactory nerves were so sensitive that he could catch one of the big rock-ants with his eyes shut.

He would choose the flat rocks mostly.  His huge right paw, with its long claws, was as clever as a human hand.  The stone lifted, a sniff or two, a lick of his hot, flat tongue, and he ambled on to the next.