The Grizzly King by James Oliver Curwood Page B

on him.
    After a moment Muskwa peered up questioningly at Thor. "What are we going to do?" he seemed to ask. "He's got our dinner!"
    Slowly and very deliberately Thor began picking his way down those last seventy-five yards. He seemed to be in no hurry bow.
    When he reached the edge of the meadow, perhaps thirty or forty yards from the big invader, he stopped again. There was nothing particularly ugly in his attitude, but the ruff about his shoulders was bigger than Muskwa had ever seen it before.
    The black looked up from his feast, and for a full half minute they eyed each other. In a slow, pendulum-like motion the grizzly's huge head swung from side to side; the black was as motionless as a sphinx.
    Four or five feet from Thor stood Muskwa. In a small-boyish sort of way he knew that something was going to happen soon, and in that same small-boyish way he was ready to put his stub of a tail between his legs and flee with Thor, or advance and fight with him. His eyes were curiously attracted by that pendulum-like swing of Thor's head. All nature understood that swing. Man had learned to understand it. "Look out when a grizzly rolls his head!" is the first commandment of the bear-hunter in the mountains.
    The big black understood, and like other bears in Thor's domain, he should have slunk a little backward, turned about and made his exit. Thor gave him ample time. But the black was a new bear in the valley-and he was not only that: he was a powerful bear, and unwhipped; and he had overlorded a range of his own. He stood his ground.
    The first growl of menace that passed between the two came from the black.
    Again Thor advanced, slowly and deliberately-straight for the robber. Muskwa followed halfway and then stopped and squatted himself on his belly. Ten feet from the carcass Thor paused again; and now his huge head swung more swiftly back and forth, and a low rumbling thunder came from between his half-open jaws. The black's ivory fangs snarled; Muskwa whined.
    Again Thor advanced, a foot at a time, and now his gaping jaws almost touched the ground, and his huge body was hunched low.
    When no more than the length of a yardstick separated them there came a pause. For perhaps thirty seconds they were like two angry men, each trying to strike terror to the other's heart by the steadiness of his look.
    Muskwa shook as if with the ague, and whined-softly and steadily he whined, and the whine reached Thor's ears. What happened after that began so quickly that Muskwa was struck dumb with terror, and he lay flattened out on the earth as motionless as a stone.
    With that grinding, snarling grizzly roar, which is unlike any other animal cry in the world, Thor flung himself at the black. The black reared a little-just enough to fling himself backward easily as they came together breast to breast. He rolled upon his back, but Thor was too old a fighter to be caught by that first vicious ripping stroke of the black's hind foot, and he buried his four long flesh-rending teeth to the bone of his enemy's shoulder. At the same time he struck a terrific cutting stroke with his left paw.
    Thor was a digger, and his claws were dulled; the black was not a digger, but a tree-climber, and his claws were like knives. And like knives they buried themselves in Thor's wounded shoulder, and the blood spurted forth afresh.
    With a roar that seemed to set the earth trembling, the huge grizzly lunged backward and reared himself to his full nine feet. He had given the black warning. Even after their first tussle his enemy might have retreated and he would not have pursued. Now it was a fight to the death! The black had done more than ravage his cache. He had opened the man-wound!
    A minute before Thor had been fighting for law and right-without great animosity or serious desire to kill. Now, however, he was terrible. His mouth was open, and it was eight inches from jaw to jaw; his lips were drawn up until his white teeth and his red gums were bared;