In the Pecos Country

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

“But, then, it can't be helped,” he added to himself, endeavoring to look philosophically at the matter. “I ought to be thankful that they didn't catch me before I reached the tree, and so I am; and I would be very thankful, too, if they would go away and leave me alone. I've got a bed here twice as good as I expected to find, and could sleep as well as anywhere else.”

Almost any sound long continued becomes monotonous, and thus it was that scarcely a half-hour had passed when, in spite of the dreadful beasts below, his eyes began to grow heavy and his head to droop.

But at this juncture he received a terrible shock. Just as everything was becoming dreamy and unreal, he was startled by a jarring of the tree, as though struck with some heavy object. When it was repeated several times, his senses returned to him, and he raised his head and listened.

“I wonder what that can be?” he said to himself. “Is some one hitting the tree? No, it isn't that.”

It seemed not so much a jarring of the trunk as a swaying of the whole tree.

Puzzled and alarmed, Fred drew his legs from their rather cramped position, and picked his way downward among the limbs until he had descended far enough to inform himself.

“Heaven save me! they're in the tree!” he gasped, paralyzed for the moment with terror.

In one sense, such was the case. The frolicsome wolves had varied their amusement by springing upward among the lowermost branches. A brute would make a jump, and, landing upon the limb, sustain himself until one or two of his comrades imitated his performance, when they would all come tumbling to the ground.

Thus, it may be said, they were climbing the tree, but they were scarcely in it when they were out of it again, and Fred had nothing to fear from that source.

In his fright, he hastily clambered back again after his rifle, with the intention of shooting the one that was nearest, but by the time he laid his hand upon the weapon his terror had lessened so much that he concluded to wait until assured that it was necessary. And a few minutes' waiting convinced him that he had nothing to fear from that source. It was only another phase of the hilarious fun they were keeping up for their own amusement.