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He opened a can of their griddle-cake syrup and by noon he had the cub following him about the tree and straining to reach the dish which he held temptingly just out of reach. Then he would sit down, and Muskwa would climb half over his lap to reach the syrup. At his present age Muskwa's affection and confidence were easily won.
Then Langdon sat down on one side of Muskwa, and Bruce on the other, and they filled and lighted their pipes. Muskwa could not even kick an objection. "A couple of husky hunters we are," said Langdon then. "Come out for a grizzly and end up with that!" He looked at the cub.
Muskwa perceived no signs of enmity, and then to his increased astonishment Thor began eating a fish within three feet of the interloper!
And above him Bruce and Langdon waited, crouched low, their guns on the ground, and each with his thick flannel shirt stripped off and held ready in his hands. When Muskwa was less than twenty yards from them they came tearing down upon him like an avalanche. Not until Bruce was upon him did Muskwa recover himself sufficiently to move.
He buried himself among the rocks; he followed a ledge with Muskwa slinking close at his heels; he climbed over a huge scarp of rock, and twisted among boulders half as big as houses. But not once did he go where Muskwa could not easily follow.
They were fully seven miles north of the point from which Bruce and Langdon were scanning the valley through their glasses when they came to a lake. It was a dark and unfriendly looking lake to Muskwa, who had never seen anything but sunlit pools in the dips. The forest grew close down to its shore. In places it was almost black. Queer birds squawked in the thick reeds.
If it had not been for Langdon, this day of the fight between the two bears would have held still greater excitement and another and deadlier peril for Thor and Muskwa. Three minutes after the hunters had arrived breathless and sweating upon the scene of the sanguinary conflict Bruce was ready and anxious to continue the pursuit of Thor.
After killing his last dog at dusk of that fatal day when they had pursued him over the mountain Thor had done just what Bruce thought that he would do, and instead of continuing southward had made a wider detour toward the north, and the third night after the fight and the loss of Muskwa he found Iskwao again.
Muskwa could smell it, but he backed away from it, and at last Langdon placed it beside the basin at the foot of the tree and returned to where Bruce was smoking. "Inside of two days he'll be eating out of my hand," he said. It was not long before the camp became very quiet. Langdon, Bruce, and the Indian rolled themselves in their blankets and were soon asleep. The fire burned lower and lower.
If Muskwa had been alone, the cub would have gone sailing off in those murderous talons. As it was, the third time the eagle circled it was down the slope from them. It was after other game. The scent of the game came to Thor and Muskwa, and they stopped.
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