Suddenly out of the dark ahead grew up two points of phosphorescent light. Antoine fell back upon his haunches with a little growl of surprise in his throat. Years of wild lonesome life had made him more beast than man.
The lights slowly came closer, growing more brilliant. Then there was a harsh, rasping growl and a sound of sniffing. Antoine waited until the expanding pupils of his eyes could grasp the situation with more distinctness. “Can’t run,” he mused. “Lariat behind, somethin’ growlin’ in front. It’s one more fight. Here goes fer my damnedest. Rather die mad and fightin’ than jump into cold water or stick my head through a rawhide necktie!”
He crawled on carefully. The lights approached with a strange swaying motion. Then of a sudden came a whine, a sharp, savage yelp, and Antoine felt his cheek ripped open with a stroke of gnashing teeth!
He felt for an instant the hot breath of the beast, the trickle of hot blood on his cheek; and then all that was human in him passed. He growled and hurled the sinewy body of his unseen foe from him with a blow of his bear-like paw. He was a big man, and in his blood the primitive beast had grown large through long years of lonesome hiding from his kind.
The dark hole echoed a muffled howl of anger, and in an instant man and beast rolled together in the darkness. It was a primitive struggle; the snapping of jaws, the rasping of hoarse throats that laboured with angry breath, snarlings of hate, yelps of pain, growls, whines.
At last the man knew that it was a grey wolf he fought. He reached for its throat, but felt his hand caught in a hot, wet, powerful trap of teeth. He grasped the under jaw with a grip that made his antagonist howl with pain. Then with his other hand he felt about in the darkness, groping for the throat.
He found it, seized it with a vice-like clutch, shut his teeth together, and threw all of the power of his massive frame into the struggle.
Slowly, slowly, the struggles of the wolf became weaker. The lean, hairy form fell limply, and the man laughed with a strange, sobbing, guttural mirth—for he was master.
Then again he felt the trickle of blood upon his cheek, the ache of his bitten hand. His anger returned with double fury. He kicked the limp body as he lay beside it, never releasing his grip.
Suddenly he forgot to kick. There were sounds! He heard the thump thump of hoofs passing his place of refuge. Then they ceased. There were sounds of voices coming dimly; then after a while the hoofs passed again, and there was a voice that said “saved hangin’ anyway.”