"If that is so I think we ought to prepare for them," suggested Fred, who shared the nervousness of his friend.
"How can we prepare more than we're prepared now?" asked Jack; "they've got to come in that opening one at a time, and it will be fun for us to set back here and pick 'em off."
"Provided they don't crowd in so fast that we can't do it."
"With four guns, I reckon we oughter take care of ourselves."
"Dere fire, too," remarked the Esquimau, jerking his head in the direction of the flames.
"Ah, I forgot that," said Rob, with a sigh of relief, recalling the dread which all animals have of fire. Indeed, he felt certain at the moment that the burning wood would prove far more effective than their weapons in keeping off the wolves.
It would be supposed that the bodies on the plateau were enough to keep the brutes occupied for a long time, and to afford them a meal sufficient to satisfy them for the night; but who ever saw a wolf when not ravenously hungry? They howled, and snarled, and fought, and pressed around the carcasses in such numbers that, when only the bones remained, it may be said that their appetites were but fairly whetted, and they were more eager than ever after additional prey.
Fully a score, in their keenness of scent, had been quick to strike the trail of the surviving musk oxen that had fled from the hot fire of the hunters. The scent was the more easily followed since a couple of the animals had been wounded, and there can be little doubt that all fell before the ferocity of their assailants, though the musk ox makes a brave fight ere he succumbs to those cowardly creatures.
Darting hither and yon, with their pointed snouts skimming over the ground, it was not Long before several struck the footprints of the party that had taken refuge in the cavern. A dozen or, perhaps, a score would not have dared attack them had they not been inflamed by the taste of food already secured. As it was, they were aroused to that point that they were ready to assail any foe that could help to satisfy their voracity.
"Here they come!" exclaimed Rob Carrol, springing to his feet, with rifle ready.