little tan face and a white spot on its baby breast which marked it as a
member of the black bear family, and not a grizzly.

The cub was trying as hard as it could to say, "I am lost, strayed, or
stolen; I'm hungry, and I've got a porcupine quill in my foot," but in
spite of that, with another ominous growl, Thor began to look about the
rocks for the mother. She was not in sight, and neither could he smell her,
two facts which turned his great head again toward the cub.

Muskwa--an Indian would have called the cub that--had crawled a foot or two
nearer on his little belly. He greeted Thor's second inspection with a
genial wriggling which carried him forward another half foot, and a low
warning rumbled in Thor's chest. "Don't come any nearer," it said plainly
enough, "or I'll keel you over!"

Muskwa understood. He lay as if dead, his nose and paws and belly flat on
the sand, and Thor looked about him again. When his eyes returned to
Muskwa, the cub was within three feet of him, squirming flat in the sand
and whimpering softly. Thor lifted his right paw four inches from the
ground. "Another inch and I'll give you a welt!" he growled.

Muskwa wriggled and trembled; he licked his lips with his tiny red tongue,
half in fear and half pleading for mercy, and in spite of Thor's lifted paw
he wormed his way another six inches nearer.

There was a sort of rattle instead of a growl in Thor's throat. His heavy
hand fell to the sand. A third time he looked about and sniffed the air; he
growled again. Any crusty old bachelor would have understood that growl.
"Now where the devil is the kid's mother!" it said.