After a time the Bighorn Highway began to descend into the valley from the upper end of which Thor had been driven by Langdon's first shots. They were now six or eight miles north of the timber in which the hunters had made their permanent camp, and headed for the lower tributaries of the Skeena. Another hour of travel, and the bare shale and gray crags were above them again, and they were on the green slopes. After the rocks, and the cold winds, and the terrible glare he had seen in the eagle's eyes, the warm and lovely valley into which they were descending lower and lower was a paradise to Muskwa. It was evident that Thor had something in his mind. He was not rambling now. He cut off the ends and the bulges of the slopes. With his head hunched low he travelled steadily northward, and a compass could not have marked out a straighter line for the lower waters of the Skeena. He was tremendously businesslike, and Muskwa, tagging bravely along behind, wondered if he were never going to stop; if there could be anything in the whole wide world finer for a big grizzly and a little tan-faced cub than these wonderful sunlit slopes which Thor seemed in such great haste to leave. CHAPTER TEN 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. He knew the big grizzly could not be far away; he was certain that Thor had gone up the mountain. He found signs of the grizzly's feet in the gravel of the coulee at just about the time Thor and the tan-faced cub struck the Bighorn Highway. His arguments failed to move Langdon. Stirred to the depth of his soul by what he had seen, and what he saw about him now, the hunter-naturalist refused to leave the blood-stained and torn-up arena in which the grizzly and the black had fought their duel. "If I knew that I was not going to fire a single shot, I would travel five thousand miles to see this," he said. "It's worth thinking about, and looking over, Bruce. The grizzly won't spoil. This will--in a few hours. If there's a story here we can dig out I want it." Again and again Langdon went over the battlefield, noting the ripped-up ground, the big spots of dark-red stain, the strips of flayed skin, and the terrible wounds on the body of the dead black. For half an hour Bruce paid less attention to these things than he did to the carcass of the caribou. At the end of that time he called Langdon to the edge of the clump of balsams. "You wanted the story," he said, "an' I've got it for you, Jimmy." He entered the balsams and Langdon followed him. A few steps under the cover Bruce halted and pointed to the hollow in which Thor had cached his meat. The hollow was stained with blood.