The lad was just twisting himself over the limb, when he felt one of his shoes seized in the jaws of a wolf. The sudden addition to his weight drew him down again, and almost jerked his hold from the limb, in which event he would have been snapped up and disposed of before he could have made a struggle in the way of resistance. But he held on, and with an unnatural spasm of strength, drew himself and the clogging weight part way up, kicking both feet with the fury of despair.
The wolf held fast to one shoe, while the heel of the other was jammed into his eyes. This, however, would not have dislodged him, had not his own comrades interfered, and defeated the brute by their own eager greediness. Seeing that the first one had fastened to the prize, a half-dozen of them began leaping upward with the purpose of securing a share in the same. In this way they got into each other's way, and all came tumbling to the ground in a heap.
Before they could repeat the performance the terrified lad was a dozen feet beyond their reach, and climbing still higher.
When Fred reached his former perch, he was in doubt whether he should halt or go still higher. His heart was throbbing violently, and he was white and panting from the frightful shock he had received.
“That was awful!” he gasped, as he reflected upon what had taken place. “I don't know what saved me from death! Yes, I do; it was God!” he added, looking up through the leaves to the clear, moonlit sky above him. “He has brought me through a good many dangers, and He will not forsake me.”
After such an experience, it was impossible that sleep should return to the eyes of the lad. He resumed his old perch, but only because it was the most comfortable. Had he believed that there was a possibility of slumber, he would have fought it off, but there was not.
“I'll wait here till morning,” he said to himself. “It must be close at hand; and then, maybe, they will go away.”
He looked longingly for some sign of the breaking of day, but the moonlight, for a long time, was unrelieved by the rose-flush of the morning.