The old man stopped, and brushed his arm across his eyes, unable to go on for a minute, while Larry sat blinking hard at the fire. But presently the hunter regained his composure a little, and continued:
“And then when you fired and shot that old devil right between the eyes, I was willing to die for sheer joy.”
The old man paused again and tried to force a little laugh.
“And to think that you had to come and kill him with the little gun, while the best that I could do was to make him mad.”
And he patted the boy’s shaggy head affectionately.
“But you see, Martin, I’ve been having more practice lately than you have,” the boy said, springing up. “Wait till I show you something.”
He darted out of the tent and came struggling back hauling the big white wolf and dropped it before the fire, and then brought the other three and laid them in a row for Martin’s inspection. His eyes were shining with pride and the old hunter’s face beamed with genuine admiration.
“Just four cartridges—one for each wolf,” Larry said proudly, “and a little tap with a club thrown in for good measure.” And then he told the old man the story of the wolves, and exhibited the rip in his coat sleeves.
Several times during the recital Larry noticed that Martin’s face twitched with the agonizing pain he was suffering, although the old man tried hard to conceal it, protesting that it was a thing too slight to be worth noticing.
“It isn’t the pain so much,” the old man said, at last. “I can stand that all right. But I could stand it just a thousand times better if I had my old pipe and one pinch of tobacco. Boy, I’d give one long year of my life if I could have five minutes’ smoke. I’d get up and fight a moose, or a grizzly, or both, right now for a dozen whiffs of the old pipe.”