“What is the matter?” he asked, looking down at Snadder.
“Wolves!” gasped the tall fellow, trembling in every part of his body. “Wolves! Almost got us!”
“Wolves!” The word passed around the circle of boys, bringing with it the fear and, too, the longing to get these beasts whose reputations had long been known from books.
But how did timber wolves happen to be in these Eastern woods? This question at once passed through Frank’s mind. He had been led to understand that the great, gray wild animals which prey on anything alive belonged to the northwestern woods. He knew of their wild habits and of the havoc these animals wrought on the sheep ranches of the West, but he had never heard of any of them in the eastern part of the country.
“Are you sure they were wolves?” asked Frank. “Where are they now?”
Snadder was sitting up, as was Blinky, and Snadder now staggered to his feet, making his way shiveringly to the fire.
“Up in the hills. We stopped up there in one of the valleys where the wind wouldn’t strike us, behind some trees, when we heard them all of a sudden. They came at us with a rush and we got into the trees out of their way. Then along came Jeek and the other two guys, and the beasts went after them. They ran for all they were worth along the trail, but they had to climb some trees, too.”
“How did you get here?” asked Frank, keeping up the questioning.
“When the beasts went after Jeek and the other fellows we got down and ran this way, because we thought we could get here ahead of them,” answered the tramp. “And we kept coming, too!”
By further questions the boys learned that Jeek and his two cronies were probably out there in the mountains, held in the trees by these snarling brutes which would keep them up until daylight, or maybe longer. The boys did not know enough of the habits of these animals to know what they would do.