Tim now turned around and looked at the Pah Utah. The latter was smoking his pipe, as if unconscious of the presence of any being or animal near him. Perhaps they were mistaken, but Howard and Elwood always affirmed that they detected a twitching at the corners of his mouth, as if he were ready to explode with laughter.
But if it was that, it was nothing more, and it manifested itself in no other manner. Tim gazed fixedly at him a moment, and then turning to the boys, asked in a whisper:
"But didn't ye hear it snarrl at meself?"
CHAPTER XXXII.
AGAIN ON THE RIVER.
The Newfoundland, Terror, occasioned more apprehension to his friends than did anything else. They came to see that no personal danger threatened so long as the fire kept burning, and as there was an abundance of fuel, this settled that point; but the dog grew enraged at the furious uproar, which drove away all sleep, and appeared to give him fear that the entire party were in danger.
Several times, when some of the wolverines came too close, he made a spring at them, and they snapped back. But the good sense of the dog kept him from venturing among the ravenous brutes, and they in turn were in too much dread of the fire to do more than spring at him and then as quickly dart back again.
It was an impressive sight and one which could never be forgotten. The large, noble Newfoundland, standing out in relief against the glare of the camp-fire, his eyes aflame with anger, every muscle braced, the jaws parted and his eyes fixed upon the dark bodies plunging over each other, darting forward and back again, snapping, snarling and furious; the Pah Utah stretched upon the ground, deliberately smoking, all unheedful of the deafening clangor and the savage brutes that sometimes approached almost within striking distance; the two boys, so close to the fire that they were often scorched by it, gazing at the animals with an expression of half fear and half wonder, starting when one of them came unusually near, and now and then sending the fatal bullet among them; the nervous Irishman, darting hither and thither, taking great care that the fire was kept fully burning; all these, we say, made a scene impressive in the highest degree.
Terror, when sharply spoken to, would withdraw from his dangerous proximity to the wolverines, but almost immediately he stepped forward to the same spot he first occupied, and his obedience to the commands of the boys was so sullen and ill-natured that they forebore speaking to him except when his safety seemed absolutely to demand it.