“Help!” he yelled, “help!”
“You shall have it, old fellow,” cried Harry, plunging forward and swinging his ax about him; and the professor, who had followed close at his heels, shouting at the top of his voice, pressed in Harry’s wake right into the centre of the furious pack. But, at that very instant, there came a long “Hallo-o!” from the lake below, and a rifle-bullet flew whistling above their heads and struck a rock scarcely a yard above the professor’s hat. Several wolves lay gasping and yelping on the ground, and the rest slunk aside. Another shot followed, and a large beast made a leap and fell dead among the stones. Gunnar, who was lying bleeding upon the ground, was helped to his feet, and supported by Harry and the professor to the door of the cottage.
“Hallo, there!” shouted Harry, in response to the call from below.
“Hallo!” someone shouted back.
The figures of three men were now seen looming up in the dusk, and Magnie, who instinctively knew who they were, sprang to meet them, and in another moment lay sobbing in his brother’s arms. The poor lad was so completely unnerved by the prolonged suspense and excitement, that he had to be carried back into the hut, and his brother, after having hurriedly introduced himself to the professor, came very near giving way to his feelings, too. Gunnar’s wounds, which were numerous, though not serious, were washed and bandaged by Grim Hering-Luck; and having been wrapped in a horse-blanket, to keep out the cold, he was stowed away in a bunk and was soon asleep. As the hut was too small to admit all the company at once, Grim and Bjarne remained outside, and busied themselves in skinning the seven wolves which had fallen on the field of battle. Harry, who had got a bad bite in his arm, which he refused to regard as serious, consented with reluctance to his uncle’s surgery, and insisted upon sitting up and conversing with Olaf Birk, to whom he had taken a great liking. But after a while the conversation began to lag, and tired heads began to droop; and when, about midnight, Grim crept in to see how his invalid was doing, he found the professor reclining on some loose moss upon the floor, while Harry was snoring peacefully in a bunk, using Olaf’s back for a pillow. And Olaf, in spite of his uncomfortable attitude, seemed also to have found his way to the land of Nod. Grim, knowing the danger of exposure in this cold glacier air, covered them all up with skins and horse-blankets, threw a few dry sticks upon the fire, and resumed his post as sentinel at the door.
The next morning Professor Winchester and his nephew accepted Olaf’s invitation to spend a few days at Hasselrud, and without further adventures the whole caravan descended into the valley, calling on their way at the saeter where Edwin had been left. It appeared, when they came to discuss the strange incidents of the preceding day, that it was Magnie’s silk handkerchief which had enabled them to track him to the edge of the lake, and, by means of a raft, which Bjarne kept hidden among the stones in a little bay, they had been enabled to cross, leaving their horses in charge of a shepherd boy whom they had found tending goats close by.
The reindeer cow which Olaf had killed was safely carried down to the valley, and two wolf-skins were presented to Magnie by Harry Winchester. The other wolf-skins, as well as the skin of the reindeer buck, Bjarne prepared in a special manner, and Harry looked forward with much pleasure to seeing them as rugs upon the floor of his room at college; and he positively swelled with pride when he imagined himself relating to his admiring fellow-students the adventures which had brought him these precious possessions.