Grizzly King

Chapter 10

After the fierce fight, neither Thor nor Mascar approached the reindeer meat.

Thor didn't want to eat, but Mascar was too excited and trembling to swallow.Mascar was still biting a piece of black bear skin, and at the same time, he let out weak screams and growls, which seemed to indicate that the matter just now was over.

Thor stood for several minutes, his huge head drooping, and the blood spattered under him in a pool.It faces the valley, and there is hardly a breath of wind here, and it is difficult to tell the direction of the wind.

The vortex of the wind forms at the bottom of the valley, rotates from bottom to top, passes through the mountainside, and goes up to the top of the mountain, where the wind becomes stronger and stronger.Now and then a high-altitude stream of air brushes downward, creeping across the valley, gently stirring the buds of the impatiens and the tops of the spruce trees.

Just as Thor was facing the east, the slightest mountain wind blew, and with it came a faint, terrifying human scent!

Thor suddenly roared, waking up from a brief state of laziness, his slack muscles stiffening.It raised its head and sniffed the wind blowing.

Muska gave up the futile fight with the hide, and sniffed the sky too.Langdon and Otto were running and sweating, the smell of sweat was thick and wafted far away, so there was a warm human smell in the air.Thor's anger flared up again.When it was wounded and bleeding, the humanity appeared for the second time.Thor humanly associated his injury, now with more certainty.It turned its head and growled at the mutilated big black bear.

Then it roared into the wind.It's not in the mood to run away.During this time, if Otto and Langdon were present at the top of the mountain, Thor's attacks would be ferocious and unstoppable.Its kind has just learned how powerful it is.

However, after the weak mountain wind, peace and quiet followed.The sound of running water in the valley was gurgling, groundhogs were making soft notes on the rocks, ptarmigans were singing on the green flat ground, and suddenly they spread their white wings and flew in groups.These scenes made Thor quiet, like a woman's gentle hand calming an angry man.For 5 minutes, Thor kept roaring and roaring, trying to find that humanity again, but couldn't find it, so the roaring and roaring gradually weakened.Finally Thor turned around and walked slowly towards the deep valley where he and the cub passed by not long ago.Muska followed.

Thor and Muska climbed up, left the valley, and disappeared into the deep valley.The bottom of the valley is full of rocks.The blood from Thor's wound solidified within a few minutes, and there was no trace of easily exposed blood behind him.They are halfway up the mountain.The rocks in the deep valley are chaotic and uplifted, so it is difficult to see the grizzly bear and the cub when looking up from the bottom of the valley.

Thor and Mascar stopped to drink at puddles formed by melting snow on the mountaintop, and continued on their way.They kept walking until they stopped at the ledge where they slept the night before.This time, Muska didn't feel tired after reaching the ridge.In the past two days, the cub has undergone great changes: it is not too round, not too fat; it is stronger, it can be said to be very strong; it has become stronger and stronger. , it passes rapidly from infancy to adolescence.

Apparently Thor had walked this ledge before, and he knew where he was going.

The ridge continues upward until it ends at the end of the rocky cliff.Thor's path leads to a large chasm, as wide and narrow as Thor's body.Thor walked through the crack and down the slope of the rock face.It was the wildest, most rugged rock face slope that Muska had ever seen.It is like a huge stone field, through the woods below, to the top of the mountain.

Numerous depressions have been formed by the irregularly concave and convex rocks.It was impossible for Muska to walk through these pits.Thor began to climb the first rocks, but Mascar stopped, whining and chirping.Muska conceded defeat for the first time.

It saw that Thor ignored it, and suddenly felt scared.It yelled for help as loudly as it could, frantically looking for its way through the rock formations.

Thor completely forgot about Muska's plight, and stopped after traveling a full thirty yards. Then, he turned his face calmly and waited for Muska.

This gave Muska encouragement, and it chased hard, clawing around, even using its chin and teeth. It took 10 minutes before it caught up with Thor, out of breath.Then, at once, its terror vanished, for where Thor stood was a long, narrow white path as solid as a floor.

The path was about eighteen inches wide, and looked both mysterious and unusual.It is strange that there should be such a road here, it seems extremely incongruous, as if a large number of craftsmen came here with hammers, split tons of sandstone and shale, and then filled the gravel between the boulders , paved into a flat and narrow road; there are still a few places that have been ground as finely as powder and as solid as cement.In fact, this road was not forged by hammers, but by the hoofs of hundreds, perhaps thousands of generations of goats. It is a trail in the mountains.The road may have been blazed by the first bighorn sheep before Columbus discovered America.Of course, it took years of goat's hoofs to make the road in the rocks so smooth.

This narrow path was an important way for Thor to travel from valley to valley, and was also used by other animals on the mountain.Thor was waiting for Muska, to let him catch his breath.At this time, both of them heard a strange "cluck" sound from above.On the slope, the trail is forty or fifty feet long, turns east and west, and descends to a small hollow behind a boulder.At this time, a big porcupine came out from behind the boulder.

It is a rule throughout the North that no one should kill a porcupine.Porcupines are "friends of the lost".The porcupine is the humorist of the wilderness, the happiest and best-natured animal, and even his air-breathing gesture is debonair.It keeps "talking", "chatting" and "giggling"; when walking, it looks like a large needle cushion flower full of vitality; it ignores everything around it, as if it is always immersed in its own world.

Walking towards Mascar and Thor, this strange "fat guy" talked happily to himself, and his "clacking" sounded like the soft voice of a baby.It was fat, walked slowly, and wobbled. The long spines on its tail touched the stones and made a rattling sound.It was thoughtless, its eyes fixed on the road under its feet.The porcupine did not see Thor until he was five feet away.In a blink of an eye, the porcupine bowed and turned into a ball.After it barked loudly for a few seconds, it was quiet, looking at the big bear with its small, red eyes.

Thor didn't want its life.However, the trail was narrow, and Thor had to continue on his way.It took a step or two forward, and the Fat Guy turned his back and was about to hit Thor with his mighty tail.Porcupines have hundreds of spines on their tails.Thor hesitated, for Thor had touched the porcupine quill more than once.

Muska looked curiously, it still had new things to learn.The thorn it once pulled out from the back paw is the thorn that the porcupine shed.Mascar seemed to notice that the porcupine was making Thor hesitate, so he turned around—and retraced the slope if necessary.However, Thor took another step forward, and Fat One immediately cooed, the fiercest noise a porcupine can make.At the same time, "Fat Guy" backed up, whipping his thick tail through the air hard enough to drive a quarter-inch thorn into a tree root.Seeing that the tail missed the target, the porcupine bowed again and turned into a ball.Thor bypassed the porcupine and stood there waiting for Muska.

"Fat Guy" elated with victory.It regained its original shape, retracted its barbed tail slightly, and then walked towards Mascar head-on.At this time, it was in a good mood again and clucked.Muska instinctively walked along the path, but unexpectedly slipped off the road.When Muska climbed up the trail again, the "fat guy" was already four or five feet behind him, walking his way intently.

The adventures of the small intestines are not quite over yet. The "fat guy" porcupine had just reached safety when suddenly, around the corner of the boulder, a badger appeared.This mountain rogue is three times the size of a mascar, and is especially fond of tender porcupines.It had fighting muscles, bones, claws, and fangs, a white mark on its nose and forehead, stubby legs, a bushy tail, and front paws almost as long as bear paws.Thor immediately yelled at the badger like a warning, and the badger was frightened and ran away dragging his tail.

At this time, the "fat guy" was walking slowly and clumsily, talking to himself while looking for a new place to eat along the way, forgetting what happened just now, completely unaware that Thor saved it from death, It's like saving it from a cliff.

Thor and Mascar followed the trail for about a mile, and the winding trail eventually brought them to the top of the mountains.The top of the hill was narrow in places, and was a good three-quarters of a mile from the bottom of the creek below.They are on the trail overlooking the mountain valley.

To Masca, everything was a hazy landscape: both lush and golden; mountain valleys so deep that they could not be seen; There are impatiens and cedar bushes that grow like parks, and clumps of thorns and willows.

On the top of the mountain, the wind is blowing.The fierce cold wind whipped Mascar, and for a long time, it felt that the snow under its feet was both mysterious and very annoying.Near it, a large bird swooped down twice.It was an eagle, the largest bird Muska had ever seen.When the eagle swooped down for the second time, it was very close to Muska. Muska heard the sound of the eagle's wings beating, and saw the eagle's fierce head and drooping sharp claws.

Thor turned and snarled at the eagle.If Mascar is left alone, it may take a long air journey in the fierce eagle's claws.In the same way, the eagle circled for the third time, flew past Thor and Muska, and slid down the hillside.It is chasing other prey.The smell of prey attracted Thor and Mascar, and they stopped.

Below them, about a hundred yards away, was a gentle slope of shale.There was a herd of goats on the shale, basking in the warm sun after their morning forage under the shale.There were about [-] or [-] sheep in this flock, mostly ewes and lambs, and three strong old sheep were lying on a pile of snow far to the east.

The eagle stretches its six-foot-long wings and hovers in the air.It was as still as a feather blown in the wind, and neither the ewes nor the older rams were aware of the eagle's presence above their heads.Most of the lambs snuggled up to their ewes, with only two or three lively ones loitering on the shale, occasionally bouncing playfully.

The eagle stared fiercely at the lambs.Suddenly, the eagle flew far away, adjusting the distance between it and the lamb; then, it flew back gracefully with the wind, its wings seemed to be motionless, but its speed was getting faster and faster, and it was heading straight towards the lamb like a rocket.It came and went like a gigantic shadow; and there was only a pitiful, painful bleat, and there were only two of the three lambs left.

There was an instant commotion on the shale.The ewes ran around, bleating anxiously.Three rams jumped up, like battlements, with their huge heads raised high, and they carefully watched the mountain valleys below and the peaks of the mountains above, in case of new dangers coming.

A ram saw Thor, and from its throat burst out a deep, piercing warning, so loud it could be heard a mile away.Signaling danger, it descended the slope; and in an instant the sheep were crashing down the steep shale slope like an avalanche.The goat's hooves loosened the small boulders, and the stones rolled and collided with each other. The sound of the collision became louder and louder, and the stones fell down the mountain during the collision.All this greatly attracted Muska.It would have stood there watching for a long time if Thor had not led it on.

After a while, the trail began to descend into the valley.The path ends exactly where Langdon hit Thor for the first time.Thor and Muska were now about seven or eight miles north of the woods where Langdon and Otto had slept, and they were heading for the lower Skeener Branch.

Thor and Mascar walked for another hour.Now they were on a green slope, with the bare shale and gray cliffs far above them again.Muska trekked among the rocks, withstood the cold wind, and saw the frightening eyes of the eagle. After that, he walked down the mountain step by step and entered the warm and beautiful valley.For Muska, the valley is paradise.

Apparently, Thor has something on his mind.It took a short cut and hurried across the slope.Instead of loitering now, he put his head down and walked steadily north.Muska followed, not sure if Thor would never stop.A sunny slope would be a good place, but Thor was in such a hurry that Muska didn't know where it was.Perhaps, there is no better place in the endless world than the slopes.

(End of this chapter)