Kalus came forward steadily, and with a further greeting, began to cut away at the untouched back legs (which a more experienced predator would have eaten first, but which were ideal for his purposes). He worked hard and diligently with the hunter's knife, trying at the same time not to jerk the carcass, which might arouse the tiger, at intervals shooing away the cub. He felt as he did so an almost irrational need of haste, which went beyond his concern for the tiger or the long journey home. He could not have explained it. There was time to meet his ends. No, it was more the aggressiveness of the act itself which put him on his guard. After so many days of caution and yielding, to have been so bold, and come to such a reward..... And whether superstition or sixth sense, his one desire at that moment was to take his portion and be gone. As the last stubborn tendon surrendered its hold of the second leg, he straightened his back with a sudden glow of pride and happiness. He wanted to walk right up to his companion, a thing which he had never done, and box his ears in relief and brotherly affection. But in the same instant the shadow behind his fears took flesh, as with a mad crash a large grizzly split through a wall of bushes, not forty feet away. And as it growlingly surveyed them with but a moment's consideration, the tiger recognized his old enemy. Fear rose instantly in the man-child, but stronger was his cornered rage. A mindless brute, who knew nothing of his struggles and yearnings, blindly sought to steal what had cost him so dearly, and in so doing, rend or even kill both himself and his closest companions. Knowing that to run would be the greater danger, and goaded by his passion, he lifted his spear and cried out in fury, standing his ground and preparing for the inevitable charge. The tiger seemed to feel much the same emotion, for it too snarled threateningly, and even began to move forward. But in the dim perceptions of the monster there also burned dark fires. This land was his, as was any in which he walked, and he would not be defied. His victory over the tiger still lived in him, and the man-child was beyond his experience. He was a prince of power, and aggression his only creed. Coming close in short, growling breaths, he raised up his quivering bulk for battle, and on his hind legs advanced toward the tiger.