“That I might have done, if I had had a sled large enough for the barrel,” replied the father. “But then we should have been obliged to pull it up the hills on the other side.”
The sleigh now struck the ice and shot forward, swinging from side to side, as the horse pulled a little unevenly. Whew! how the cold air cut in their faces. How it whizzed and howled in the tree-tops! Hark! What was that? Tollef instinctively pressed his boy more closely to him. Hush!—his heart stood still, while that of the boy, who merely felt the reflex shock of his father’s agitation, hammered away the more rapidly. A terrible, long-drawn howl, as from a chorus of wild, far-away voices, came floating away over the crowns of the pine-trees.
“What was that, father,” asked Thor, a little tremulously.
“It was wolves, my child,” said Tollef, calmly.
“Are you afraid, father?” asked the boy again.
“No, child, I am not afraid of one wolf, nor of ten wolves; but if they are in a flock of twenty or thirty, they are dangerous. And if they scent our track, as probably they will, they will be on us in five minutes.”
“How will they scent our track, father?”
“They smell us in the wind; and the wind is from us and to them, and then they howl to notify their comrades, so that they may attack us in sufficient force.”
“Why don’t we return home, then?” inquired the boy, still with a tolerably steady voice, but with sinking courage.
“They are behind us. Our only chance is to reach the shore before they overtake us.”