In the savage joy of attack, Jimmie’s assailants forgot discretion. Snarls and growls escaped them while they worried the small body. In the manner of wolves, too, they snapped at each other. The dogs in the outhouse awoke, cocked their ears, came in a frenzy to the conflict; not to save Jimmie Grimm, but to participate in his destruction. Jimmie was prostrate beneath them all––still protecting his throat; not regarding his other parts.
And by this confusion Jim Grimm was aroused from a sleepy stupor by the kitchen fire.
“I wonder,” said he, “what’s the matter with them dogs.”
“I’m not able t’ make out,” his wife replied, puzzled, “but–––”
“Hark!” cried Jim.
They listened.
“Quick!” Jimmie’s mother screamed. “They’re at Jimmie!”
With an axe in his hand, and with merciless wrath in his heart, Jim Grimm descended upon the dogs. He stretched the uppermost dead. A second blow broke the back of a wolf. The 31 third sent a dog yelping to the outhouse with a useless hind leg. The remaining dogs decamped. Their howls expressed pain in a degree to delight Jim Grimm and to inspire him with deadly strength and purpose. Tog and the surviving wolf fled.
“Jimmie!” Jim Grimm called.
Jimmie did not answer.