He tried the experiment of raising an arm or swinging a leg as if he were about to move again. Instantly every sharp-nosed head was raised in an attitude of deep attention. To those wolves there was but one interesting object in the whole of that dreary expanse of snow, and that was Sandy McTavish.
“I’ve got to do something,” thought Sandy desperately. “Before long it will be getting dusk.”
He couldn’t help giving a shudder as he thought of this. The idea of spending a night in the freezing cold with those silent, tireless watchers below him shook his courage badly. He concluded to try the effect of a few shots among the pack. Possibly, if he could kill the leaders, the rest might become alarmed and leave him.
He raised his rifle and singled out the great, gray wolf that appeared to be commander-in-chief of the creatures. This was a huge animal with bristling hackles who was covered with wounds and scars received no doubt in defending his title of leader of the pack.
Sandy took careful aim between the wolf’s blazing yellow eyes that shone in the gathering dusk like signal lamps. He pulled the trigger and a blaze and a sharp crack followed. Mingled with them was the death cry of the big gray wolf.
He leaped fully four feet into the air and came down with a crash. Before the breath was out of his gaunt body the pack was upon him, tearing, rending and fighting. When the mass of struggling, famine-stricken wolves surged apart again, Sandy saw that a few bloodstains on the snow and some bones in the mouths of the stronger of the wolves were all that remained of the leader of the pack.
A king among them when alive, the dead wolf had been to his followers nothing more than so much meat. Their cannibal feast being disposed of, except that here and there a wolf crunched a bone, the animals resumed their vigil.
Twice, three times more, did Sandy fire; but each time with the same result.
He dared not waste more ammunition. He must conserve what he had left for emergencies, in case it came down to a fight for his very life.
For the first time since he had gained a place of comparative safety the boy gave way utterly. He sank his head in his hands and despair rushed over him like a wave.