“Dere!” cried Jan, in high good humor. “I kills dat pear mit mine roer.”
“It was a bold thing to do.”
“Vell, I dinks off I vas not kill dat pear, ter pear vould kill me,” said Jan. “So I kills ter pear.”
“That showed great discretion on your part,” laughed Millicent. “But, what is the sound that seems to come from below?”
Ben stopped pulling at the body of the bear and listened. There was a pattering sound, like drops of falling rain, and then the pass below them was filled with a moving mass, and that mass was a pack of prairie-wolves, coming on at
“Their long gallop, which can tire
The hounds’ deep hate or the hunter’s fire.”
A pack of wolves, mad with hunger. There is nothing more fearful to a trapper. They know too well the vindictive fury with which the black brutes pursue and drag down their prey.
“Togs?” queried Jan.
“Wolves!” shouted Ben. “Heel it, Jan! Git up a tree as lively as you kin. I wouldn’t give a beaver-pelt fer yer life ef ye don’t, and ez fer the b’ar—umph! Run for it. Turn the hosses loose.”