Ted turned to meet it as it rushed toward him, but as he did so he heard a shout from the ranch house and turned his head in that direction for an instant.
But that instant was the critical one, and before he could get around again to face the wolf it was upon him.
Ted felt it strike his chest a mighty blow with its head, and staggered backward.
It suddenly came to him that if he got under the wolf its teeth surely would get to his throat, and that one snap of those saber-sharp teeth would settle the business for him.
He tried to protect his throat with his left arm as he felt himself toppling, but could not get it up far enough because the wolf's body and head interposed.
But he was slashing away with his knife in a frenzy of despair, and, apparently, was doing some execution, for every time he struck the wolf let out a little whine of angry pain.
But the wolf had all the best of it now, and as Ted's foot slipped on some pieces of dry grass he went down with the heavy brute on top of him.
He could feel it nuzzling at his neck for a toothhold on his throat, but he kept his chin pressed close to his neck, and, although the wolf chewed his shirt to pieces, it had found no room to get its teeth into the boy's flesh.
Ted had no time now to play with the knife. It was not up to him to conquer the wolf now, but to keep it from taking his life.
Had his revolver been with him he could have ended the fight with a couple of shots, even if the brute seemed to have a dozen lives, for he knew that had any one of the knife thrusts which he had planted in the wolf's body been given to an ordinary specimen of the species the fight would have been over long since.