As long as he held the wind he was safe, unless the hunters made an effort to checkmate his method of escape by detouring and cutting him off.
It took him half an hour to reach the topmost ridge of rock, from which point he would have to break cover and reveal himself as he made the last two or three hundred yards up the shale side of the mountain to the backbone of the range.
When Thor made this break he put on a sudden spurt of speed that left the dogs thirty or forty yards behind him.

For two or three minutes he was clearly outlined on the face of the mountain, and during the last minute of those three he was splendidly profiled against a carpet of pure-white snow, without a shrub or a rock to conceal him from the eyes below.
Bruce and Langdon saw him at five hundred yards, and began firing.

Close over his head Thor heard the curious ripping wail of the first bullet, and an instant later came the crack of the rifle.
A second shot sent up a spurt of snow five yards ahead of him.

He swung sharply to the right.

This put him broadside to the marksmen.