This second attack, coming after he had been wounded in the foreleg, was too much for the animal, and with a yelp of sudden fear he went limping and leaping through the snow, sending the loose particles flying all about him. One of the boys discharged his gun after the beast, but whether he hit the animal or not he could not tell. In another moment the wolf was out of sight.
"Do you think any of them will come back?" panted Andy, who was quite out of breath with excitement.
"I don't think so," answered Jack. "However, let us reload just as quickly as we can and be ready for them." He had been taught the all-important lesson that a hunter should not let his firearm remain empty.
"Well, anyhow, I got one of them!" cried Fred, with proper pride, as he surveyed the beast he had laid low. The discharge of shot had almost torn the wolf's throat asunder.
"What will you do with him?" questioned Randy.
"I'm going to take him back to the cabin and ask Uncle Barney about it," was Fred's reply. "Perhaps we can have the wolf stuffed."
The excitement of the encounter with the wolves had taken away the boys' desire to do any more hunting that day, and, strapping the dead wolf fast to a tree limb, they started on the return to the northern end of the island, each doing his share in carrying the dead animal.
"What's that? A wolf?" cried Barney Stevenson, when he saw what they had brought. And then he added quickly. "Must be the one that we located in the cabin at the other end of the island."
"We can't say about that," answered Jack, and then all of the boys told the story of the encounter in the woods.
"Four of them! Why, I haven't heard of any such thing as that around here for years! I'll have to go after some of those wolves myself."