CHAPTER XII.
BROUGHT TO BAY BY WOLVES.
“Ooh! how awfully queer them howls seem, Thad!” remarked Step Hen, presently, just as the patrol leader expected he would; for he had a pretty good idea as to what was just passing in the mind of the tenderfoot.
“Well, they do sound different somehow, from what they did when we were sitting around the cheery camp-fire, listening to stories told by the guides,” Thad admitted. “But then, wolves as a rule are cowardly brutes. They may do a heap of howling, but they seldom show any bravery. Only when in packs are they feared by hunters, away up in the frozen-up parts of Canada, I’m told.”
“But, say, don’t you think there’s a pack around here, right now?” demanded Step Hen, apprehensively.
“What makes you ask that?” the other questioned.
“Why, in the first place, old Eli told us they never came away down here unless in numbers; and then again, Thad, didn’t you notice that when one gave tongue over yonder to the right, a second answered him back from the left; and by jinks! listen to that, would you, a third and a fourth, as sure as you live! Say, they’re all around us, Thad; they’ve got us surrounded!”
“Let ’em surround, if it does ’em any good,” laughed the other; and if he felt the slightest bit of uneasiness himself on account of those wolfish howls, Thad at least managed to conceal it; because he knew Step Hen was feeling “creepy” enough as it was, without having his alarm augmented by seeing his companion concerned.
“But don’t you think they might be able to pull us down just by force of numbers, Thad?” the other went on.
“Oh! there can’t be any such bunch of the cowardly brutes around, as all that, I guess, Step Hen. And don’t forget, please, that we’re armed with weapons calculated to knock the spots out of any gray sneak that ever tried to steal venison won by two husky hunters. Think how you have six bullets in that little gun of yours; and each one ought to count for a wolf, if it came to the worst.”
“Oh! there’s where I was a fool!” said Step Hen, in a disgusted tone.