A few feet away, the head of a huge she-wolf protruded from the glossy green leaves of the dense laurel. The creature had just dropped a fawn it had been bringing home, and the bleeding carcass lay unheeded
at the edge of the thicket. Its green eyes blazed with deadly intention; the long hair on its neck bristled up straight around the blood-spotted jaws into a Medusa's head of terror.
Orion had barely time to throw up one guarding arm, when the fierce brute sprang at his throat. Even the wild boar at bay has no fury comparable with that of the hunting wolf-mother, protecting her young. But for the giant's instinctive defensive movement, it might have gone badly even with him. As it was, the dripping teeth caught hold of a fold of his skin garment, and he staggered against the rock wall at the impact of the animal landing on his shoulder.
This death-grapple quite suited the hunter's own savage mood. His eyes blazed as balefully as those of the wolf. With a motion as swift as that of a panther he gripped the animal's upper jaw with his right hand. Heaving it free from his shoulder, his left hand caught the lower jaw before those wicked fangs had time to close upon his fingers.
Then, putting forth his full might, he fairly tore the struggling beast's jaws asunder, and dashed it lifeless against a boulder.
He was a superb figure as he stood there in the full vigor of his aroused powers. It might have been one of the Titan brood defying any force of earth or heavens. Yet instead of being monstrous, he was beautiful—manhood in its perfection though enlarged far beyond common humanity.
"Well done!" said a clear voice behind him. "A fitting end for the fawn-killer."
Orion turned—and to his surprise, his limbs trembled as they had not done at sight of the attacking brute.
A tall maidenly figure stood beside a cypress tree whose twisted roots disappeared into a rock crevice. She held a bow, and her right hand still gripped the long arrow which she had clearly been holding sighted against the wolf, ready to discharge the instant the man seemed to be getting the worst of the struggle.