Three figures, two abreast and one behind, came mushing through the little pass where the creek flowed. He knew them well enough. There were plenty of grizzly traditions concerned with them. He recognized them in an instant as his hereditary foes,--the one breed that had not yet learned to give him right-of-way on the trail. They were tall, fearful forms, and something in their eyes sent a shudder of cold clear to his heart, yet he was not in the humor to give ground. His nerves were jumpy and unstrung from the fall of the tree, his jaw wracked him; a turn of the hair might decide whether he would merely stand and let them pass, or whether he would launch into that terrible, death-dealing charge that most grizzly hunters, sooner or later, come to know. His mental processes did not go far enough to disassociate these enemies with the stabbing foe in his gums. For the same reason he blamed them for disruption of his sleep. His ears laid back, and he uttered a deep growl. There was no more magnificent creature in all of the breadth of the forest than this, the grizzly of the Selkirks. He was old and savage and wise; but for all his years, in the highest pinnacle of his strength. No man need to glance twice at him to know his glory. No tenderfoot could look at him and again wonder why, in the talk round the camp fire, the tried woodsmen always spoke of the grizzly with respect. It was true that in the far corners of the earth there were creatures that could master him. The elephant could crush the life from his mighty body with the power of his knees; Kobaoba the rhino, most surly of all game, could have pierced his heart with his horn; perhaps even the Cape buffalo--that savage explosive old gentleman of the African marshes, most famous for his deadly propensity to charge on sight--could have given him a fair battle. But woe to the lion that should be obliged to face that terrible strength! Even the tiger, sinuous and terrible--armed with fangs like cruel knives and dreadful, raking, rending claws--could not have faced him in a fair fight. But these were folk of the tropics, and his superiority was unquestioned among the northern animals. Even the bull moose had no wish to engage in a stand-up-and-take, close-range, death fight with a grizzly. The bull caribou left his trail at the sound of his heavy body in the thicket; the wolf pack, most deadly of fighting organizations, were glad to avoid him in the snow. His first cousins, the Alaskan bears, were more mighty than he, but they were less agile and, probably, less cunning. Such lesser creatures as wished to continue to enjoy the winter sunlight stepped softly when they journeyed past his lair.