The gun spat twice, thrice. Then rose a snapping, snarling wrangle. Off there in the gloom a hideous turmoil grew.
It ended in screams of pain and rage, suddenly throttled, choked, and torn to nothing. A worrying, rending, gnashing told the story of the wounded wolf's last moment.
Stern sprang up, a dry flaming branch of resinous fir in his hand. The rifle he thrust back into the bag.
“Ate him, still warm, eh?” he cried. “Fine! And five shots left in the gun. You won't miss, Beta! You can't!”
Forward they struggled once more.
“Gad, we'll hang to this bag now, whatever happens!” panted Stern, jerking it savagely off a jagged stub. “Five minutes more and we'll--arrh! would you?”
The flaring torch he dashed full at a grisly muzzle that snapped and slavered at his legs. To their nostrils the singe of burned hair wafted. Yelping, the beast swerved back.
But others ran in and in at them; and now the torch was failing. Both of them shouted and struck; and the revolver stabbed the night with fire.
Pandemonium rose in the forest. Cries, howls, long wails and snuffing barks blent with the clicking of ivories, the pad-pad-pad of feet, the crackling of the underbrush.
All around, wolves. On either side, behind, in front, the sliding, bristling, sneaking, suddenly bold horrors of the wild.