His instructions were to let the deer go by unharmed by them; then, as the wolves followed, for each to pick out one and fire. Then, if attacked by the rest of the pack, they were to close in together and fight them with their axes and their knives. If, however, they were not attacked after they had fired, they were to again load their guns as quickly as possible.
“Down to your places!” sternly spoke Mustagan.
And hardly a moment passed ere the herd of deer flew by, some of them so close to the hidden hunters that they could almost have touched them with their guns.
“Steady, boys!” were Mustagan’s whispered words to the white lads, who, crouching down near him with their fingers on the triggers of their guns, had caught his cool, brave spirit; and although the blood-curdling howls of the wolves were now distinctly heard they flinched not in the strain of those trying moments.
As Frank and Sam’s guns were on this excursion only single-barrelled, while the rest were double-barrelled, Mustagan said:
“When first wolf reach that stone, Frank, kill him. Then Sam hit the next one. Then I kill some. Then other Indians fire. Perhaps other wolves run away. Perhaps not, so have axes handy.”
This advice was not neglected, for each axe, keen-edged and serviceable, was at the side of its owner.
“Now here they come!” shouted Mustagan.
Nothing can be more trying to brave hunters than was such a position as this. The travellers in Russia and elsewhere who have been assailed by packs of these fierce wolves, sending out their merciless, blood-curdling howlings, can appreciate the position of Frank and Sam. Yet they were true as steel, and when the word was given by the old Indian, in whom they had such implicit confidence, the guns were raised, and with nerves firm and strong they fired with unerring accuracy, and two great grey wolves fell dead, pierced through by the death-dealing bullets.
Then Mustagan fired. He was too wise a hunter to waste a bullet on a single wolf, if with it there was a possibility of killing two; and so, as the two leaders who had been a little in advance of the pack had fallen, he fired at two who were running side by side. His bullet first went through the body of the one nearer to him and then broke the back of the second.