It was not the sort of hunger to be appeased by ants and grubs, or even gophers and whistlers.

It may be, too, that he guessed how nearly starved little Muskwa was.

The cub had not once opened his eyes, and he still lay in his warm pool of sunshine when Thor made up his mind to go on.
It was about three o'clock, a particularly quiet and drowsy part of a late June or early July day in a northern mountain valley.

The whistlers had piped until they were tired, and lay squat out in the sunshine on their rocks; the eagles soared so high above the peaks that they were mere dots; the hawks, with meat-filled crops, had disappeared into the timber; goat and sheep were lying down far up toward the sky-line, and if there were any grazing animals near they were well fed and napping.
The mountain hunter knew that this was the hour when he should scan the green slopes and the open places between the clumps of timber for bears, and especially for flesh-eating bears.
It was Thor's chief prospecting hour.

Instinct told him that when all other creatures were well fed and napping he could move more openly and with less fear of detection.