Dick found his master leaning weakly against a tree.
“Are you ’urt, sir?” he asked, dismounting.
“No. See if they’ve killed Gabe and Pinch, Dick. Lord! but how those little hounds did fight!”
Dick returned in a short time.
“I found two dead wolves, and I can’t find any of the dogs, sir,” he said. “Listen!—they’re givin’ of ’em ’ell, sir, an’ no mistake.”
Hallibut sat down on a log and drew the maimed dog over against his knee.
“Nell, old girl,” he said chokingly, stroking her long ears, “you’re a tartar, Nell.”
The dog whined and licked his hand.
“Pinch, sir,” cried Dick, “ ’e be limpin’, but he be none the worse beyond bein’ sore as anythink, sir.”
In half an hour the rest of the pack had returned and were gamboling and leaping about Hallibut. Great, deep-chested, throaty dogs those wolf-hounds were. Their one consuming desire being to tear down and kill, they felt for the man before them only the blind devotion of dog for master. Hallibut had given them more blows than pats, but he knew how to command respect among dogs.