"No, but they can keep us here. It will be dark in an hour, and likely enough they will watch us all night."
"Then we had better shoot two of them, and jump down with our hatchets. Keeping back to back, we ought to be able to face ten wolves."
"Yes, if that were all; but see, here come three or four more, and the dozen will soon swell to a score. No, we shall have to wait here all night, and probably for some time tomorrow, for the men are not likely to find us very early, and they will hardly hear our pistols unless some of them happen to come in this direction."
"Do you think, if we shoot two or three of them, the rest will go?"
"Certainly not. It will be all the worse. Their comrades would at once tear them to pieces and devour them, and the scent of blood would very soon bring others to the spot."
"Well, if we have got to wait here all night, Stanislas, we had better choose the most comfortable place we can, at once, before it gets dark. We must mind we don't go to sleep and tumble off."
"There will be no fear of our sleeping," Stanislas said. "The cold will be too great for that. We shall have to keep on swinging our hands and feet, and rubbing our noses, to prevent ourselves from getting frostbitten."
"Well, I have never felt the cold in these clothes," Charlie said.
"No, sir, but you have never been out at night, sitting cramped on a tree."
Hour after hour passed. Even in the darkness they could see the wolves lying in the snow below them, occasionally changing their position, keeping close together for warmth, and often snarling or growling angrily, as one or two shifted their position, and tried to squeeze in so as to get into a warm spot.