"Yes," answered Kate, "but I want to get home before dinner, because Joe said that he would go with me down to the village this evening. I am going to ride his pony, and he will ride Rob's."
"Well," said Gertrude, "if we must, we must. Mother loves raspberries so; they are her favorite fruit, you know; and if we did not take her a bucketful back with us, I should never forgive myself, though perhaps she would not say a word."
"Let us commence right now," imploringly said Kate. "I want to get back as soon as I can."
Both girls rose languidly to do as they proposed, but there did not seem to be much energy in their motions. Just as Gertrude had taken her pail from its place in the rocks, their ears were greeted by a low growl, which seemed to come directly from underneath the shelf on which they had been sitting. They looked at each other, and their faces blanched as another snarl and a howl, nearer than before, came to their ears, and both recognized the familiar sound they had so often heard when lying in bed at night, as that of a wolf. Those predatory brutes frequently made their nightly rounds in the vicinity of the corral, trying to get at the young calves, and they might be heard in the timber, watching for a chance to secure some of the fowls shut up in their house of stone near the barn.
Gertrude, who was really very brave under ordinary circumstances, immediately stood still, and looking all around her, she suddenly met the gaze of a large, gaunt she-wolf at whose side were standing six little ones! Generally the wolf, like nearly all other wild animals, will run instantly at the sight of a human being; but the maternal instinct is so wonderful that, when they have young, they will die in defending their offspring from any supposed danger. This instinct was shown in this instance. The fierce animal had crept out of her den at the sound of voices, and believing that her cubs were in jeopardy, she made a frantic dash toward the now thoroughly frightened girls, who hastily scrambled to the summit of the ledge.
Fortunately for them, the wolf is a poor climber, but with a savage bound toward the base of the flat rock on which the girls had a moment before been sitting, she arrived at it the same instant they had succeeded in reaching an elevation of about twelve feet above the level of the water.
Just as Kate, who was not as collected as her sister, was being dragged up by Gertrude, the wolf made a desperate leap and snapped at her with his terrible teeth, but failed. It succeeded, however, in catching her skirt in its ponderous jaws, and tore it completely from her waist, and she, almost feeling the hot breath of the infuriated brute, uttered a loud scream and fell fainting in her sister's arms.
Less than three hundred yards above the ledge of rocks, in a beautiful piece of prairie, Joe was herding the cattle, and Kate's cry, so full of fear, fell piercingly on his ears. He was aware that his sisters were to go berrying that morning, and he also knew that the sound could only come from one of them. He was lying on the grass under the shade of a big elm with the bridle-rein of his pony in his hand. Grasping his rifle, which was at his side, in an instant he had mounted his animal, and digging his heels into its flanks, fairly flew down the creek to where his sisters were held at bay by the wolf. He arrived there in less than three minutes after he heard the scream of alarm, and saw the wolf still persisting in its vain efforts to reach the girls on the summit of the ledge. Gertrude was almost paralyzed with fear, and Kate lay at her feet in the swoon into which the action of the wolf had thrown her.
The enraged beast was too much occupied with the girls to notice that its would-be victims had assistance so near at hand, and Joe, as Gertrude saw her brother's approach, put his finger to his lips, indicating that she must remain perfectly silent. He dismounted in a second, and putting the loop of the reins over his left arm, dropped on one knee, and taking careful aim, sent a ball crashing right through the brain of the wolf, which instantly fell dead in its tracks.