"Anyway I don't like it."
"Neither do I. Look at that old fellow in the lead. Guess he's called a giant among 'em. I kin see the slaver fallin' from his mouth. He's thinkin' o' you, Henry, 'cause there's more meat on you than there is on me."
"I don't know about that. You'd make a fine dish for the table of the wolf king. Roasted and served up whole they'd save you for the juicy finish, the last gorgeous touch to the feast."
"Don't talk that way, Henry. You make me shiver all over. I ain't afeard o' a wolf, but ef I didn't hev a rifle, an' you wuzn't with me, I'd be plum' skeered at them twenty back thar, follerin' us lookin' at us an' slaverin'."
The shiftless one shook his fist at the king wolf, an enormous beast, the largest that they had ever seen in Kentucky. The whole troop was following them, their light feet making no noise in the grass and leaves, but their red eyes and white teeth always gleaming in the moonlight. They were showing an uncommon daring. Lone hunters had been killed and eaten in the winter by starving wolves, but it was seldom that two men in the spring were followed in such a manner. It became weird, uncanny and ominous.
"I know what's happened," said the shiftless one suddenly. "I kin tell you why they follow us so bold."
"What's the reason, Sol?"
"You know all them 'normous tigers and hijeous monsters we've been talkin' 'bout, that's been dead a hundred thousan' years. Thar souls comin' down through other animals hev gone straight into our pack o' wolves thar. They ain't wolves really. They're big tigers an' mammoths an' sech like."
"I'm not disputing what you say, Sol, because I don't know anything about it, but if it wasn't for raising an alarm I'd shoot that king wolf there, who is following us so close. I can tell by his eyes that he expects to eat us both."
"What kind o' tigers wuz it that Paul said lived long ago, an' growed so monstrous big?"