Suddenly he heard a shot. A sharp howl of rage answered it.
“There’s one gone,” he muttered. “That fool trapper’s tired of listening to ’em.” He mechanically fingered his own gun.
He listened, expecting to hear another shot when the trapper had had time to reload, but there was none. The wolves were silent.
“Scared ’em away,” he thought, advancing cautiously from tree to tree. “If only he don’t have the idea of shooting me, this is the time for me to get in.”
He stopped again. A thrill of horror shot down his spine. He felt his hand lose its grip on the rifle. The wolves had broken out snarling and snapping, but the sound that sickened him was the cry of a man in deadly peril. Not a cry for help, since he could not know that there was help anywhere to hear. But simply the cry of a human animal at bay, and then the thick blows of the gun-butt on the heads of the attacking wolves.
“I’m coming!” shouted Jimmy, clutching his rifle, with more than his own strength returned to him. “Hold hard there! I’m coming!”
Even after he was close enough to get a sight on the black mass that snarled and fought together, he dared not shoot for fear of hitting the man he was trying to save. Then he made him out, a taller shadow than the rest, pinned against the wall of the cabin, holding off the wolves with the thick blows of his gun-butt.
Aiming at the outer mass, Jimmy cocked his rifle and fired. Two of the grotesque shapes sprang high into the air and fell back dead. There was an immediate fight over the carcasses.
“Run round to the back, and push in the window!” cried Jimmy. “They’ll be at you again in a minute. Make haste.”
“Can’t move. Leg’s broken.”