Meat and sleeping furs were made into packs, and the sled was abandoned.  Linday resented Daw’s taking the heavier pack, but Daw had his will.

“You got to work as soon as you get there.  Come on.”

It was one in the afternoon when they started to climb.  At eight that evening they cleared the rim and for half an hour lay where they had fallen.  Then came the fire, a pot of coffee, and an enormous feed of moosemeat.  But first Linday hefted the two packs, and found his own lighter by half.

“You’re an iron man, Daw,” he admired.

“Who?  Me?  Oh, pshaw!  You ought to see Rocky.  He’s made out of platinum, an’ armour plate, an’ pure gold, an’ all strong things.  I’m mountaineer, but he plumb beats me out.  Down in Curry County I used to ’most kill the boys when we run bear.  So when I hooks up with Rocky on our first hunt I had a mean idea to show ‘m a few.  I let out the links good an’ generous, ‘most nigh keepin’ up with the dawgs, an’ along comes Rocky a-treadin’ on my heels.  I knowed he couldn’t last that way, and I just laid down an’ did my dangdest.  An’ there he was, at the end of another hour, a-treadin’ steady an’ regular on my heels.  I was some huffed.  ’Mebbe you’d like to come to the front an’ show me how to travel,’ I says.  ‘Sure,’ says he.  An’ he done it!  I stayed with ’m, but let me tell you I was plumb tuckered by the time the bear tree’d.

“They ain’t no stoppin’ that man.  He ain’t afraid of nothin’.  Last fall, before the freeze-up, him an’ me was headin’ for camp about twilight.  I was clean shot out—­ptarmigan—­an’ he had one cartridge left.  An’ the dawgs tree’d a she grizzly.  Small one.  Only weighed about three hundred, but you know what grizzlies is.  ‘Don’t do it,’ says I, when he ups with his rifle.  ‘You only got that one shot, an’ it’s too dark to see the sights.’

“‘Climb a tree,’ says he.  I didn’t climb no tree, but when that bear come down a-cussin’ among the dawgs, an’ only creased, I want to tell you I was sure hankerin’ for a tree.  It was some ruction.  Then things come on real bad.  The bear slid down a hollow against a big log.  Downside, that log was four feet up an’ down.  Dawgs couldn’t get at bear that way.  Upside was steep gravel, an’ the dawgs’d just naturally slide down into the bear.  They was no jumpin’ back, an’ the bear was a-manglin’ ’em fast as they come.  All underbrush, gettin’ pretty dark, no cartridges, nothin’.

“What’s Rocky up an’ do?  He goes downside of log, reaches over with his knife, an’ begins slashin’.  But he can only reach bear’s rump, an’ dawgs bein’ ruined fast, one-two-three time.  Rocky gets desperate.  He don’t like to lose his dawgs.  He jumps on top log, grabs bear by the slack of the rump, an’ heaves over back’ard right over top of that log.  Down they go, kit an’ kaboodle, twenty feet, bear, dawgs, an’ Rocky, slidin’, cussin’, an’ scratchin’, ker-plump into ten feet of water in the bed of stream.  They all swum out different ways.  Nope, he didn’t get the bear, but he saved the dawgs.  That’s Rocky.  They’s no stoppin’ him when his mind’s set.”