"I am glad Meigs came," said Fannin, "because he reminds me of something that happened last year that I want to tell you about. Two years ago a man who lived about here thought that he would raise some sheep. He didn't have money enough to get many, but he got half a dozen ewes and a ram, and turned them out to pick up their living along the shore and in the timber. They did very well for a while. But presently, when the man started to look them up, he found that there was one missing, and then another, and then the old ram disappeared. We never knew just what got them, but we suspected bears and wolves; and one day, going through the timber, I found the skeleton of a sheep, and another day the skeleton of another. About a year ago I took my rifle and went out for a little walk in the timber. I went a mile or two and didn't see anything, and then came back nearly to the road here. I climbed up on a stump and sat there for a while, listening to the birds and watching them. Presently, in a trail that passed close to that stump, I saw the three sheep going along towards the road. I paid no particular attention to them, but after they had passed I got down from the stump, walked out to the trail, and started for the road myself. I could see the sheep not very far ahead of me, and, as they were feeding along and I was walking briskly, I got pretty close to them before they reached the road. They had almost got to it, and I was not far behind them, when suddenly a bear charged out of the timber, into the trail, and tried to grab one of the sheep. They rushed around a little crook in the trail, and the bear after them, before I could cock my rifle and put it to my shoulder. I started after them as hard as I could go, thinking that if the bear followed the sheep into the road I would surely get a good shot at him and would probably kill him. I rushed out into the road, and almost into the arms of Meigs here, who had been walking away from the inlet; but the sheep and the bear had disappeared. I said to Meigs: 'Hello, Meigs! What are you doing here?' He raised his hand to keep me from speaking, took a step or two forward, shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked up the trail by which I had just come out from the timber. I could not understand what was the matter with him, and presently I said in a low voice: 'What is the matter with you; what do you see?'
"'I am just trying to see' he answered, 'what in thunder is the next thing that will come along that trail.'
"He had been taking a little walk along the road and got just opposite the trail, you see, when suddenly the sheep rushed out, and then the bear, and then I came—all going as hard as we could go. It must have been a funny sight."
"It was," said Meigs, "and for a minute I thought I was crazy and seeing things that did not exist."
"Tell them about the morning that the wolf chased you," said Fannin.
"Well," said Meigs, as he pushed down the tobacco in his pipe and pulled on it two or three times, to get it going well, "that was quite a scare for me. Of course I knew that the wolves were not dangerous in the country I came from, but I didn't know about them here. Winter before last a wolf came down to the inlet and stopped right near here. We used to hear him howling often, and I always believed that he killed that old ram that Fannin has been talking about. I set a trap for him two or three times, but he would not go near it. One morning, just at daylight, I heard him howling close above the cabin. I jumped out of my blankets, grabbed my gun, and stepped out to see if I could get a shot. I could not see him from the door, and I hurried up the trail, about thirty steps from the door of the cabin, to where the trail made a little bend. My rifle was an old-fashioned Spencer carbine. I don't know whether any of you men ever saw one?" and he looked around the circle inquiringly.
"Go ahead," said Hugh, "I know them. They miss fire half the time, and the other half they are just as likely to shoot around the corner as they are to shoot straight ahead."
"Yes," said Meigs, "you have used one, I guess."
"Well," he continued, "when I got to the bend in that trail and looked around, there was the wolf a short hundred yards off, with his fore feet on a log, and his head toward me, just beginning to howl. I dropped down on one knee and drew a bead on his breast and pulled the trigger. The cartridge exploded, and if you'll believe me, when the smoke drifted away I could see that ball from that old Spencer carbine corkscrewing toward the wolf as though it was never going to get there. In the meantime the wolf had jumped from the log on which it was standing and started toward me. I turned round and ran for the cabin. When I was ten or fifteen feet from the door the string of my drawers broke, and they fell down around my ankles and shackled me, so that I couldn't run. I had to come down on my hands and knees and scramble the rest of the way on all fours. When I got inside the cabin and slammed the door and looked back through a crack, of course the wolf was out of sight.
"Fannin thinks that this is a pretty good joke on me, and maybe it is."