Sport was down. Major was strangling the life from a clawing wolf. Ginger was engaged in an unfinished battle. Two wolves leaped at the sled, one from either side. The rifle cracked. A wolf leaped high and fell. The second sprang. He was instantly met and borne to the snow by Bones, the second “wheel-horse.”
But now they came in a drove, five, six, seven, gaunt gray beasts with chop-chopping jaws.
With deliberate aim the boy dropped the foremost, then the second. Then, calmly clubbing his rifle, he waited.
The foremost wolf was not two yards from the sled, when Joe was startled to hear a rifle crack and see the wolf leap high in air. He was astonished. Curlie could not possibly have reached his objective in this time. Who was this man, his deliverer? Leaning far forward, he tried to peer into the darkness, as the rifle cracked again and yet again.
CHAPTER VII
REVENGE FOR A LOST COMRADE
For a second, as he stood there on the sled, with the big Arctic moon rising above the forest, with the crack of the strange rifle, the roar of dogs and the howl of wolves dinning in his ears, Joe fancied himself acting a part in the movies. It was too strange to seem real.
This lasted but a second; then, realizing that the battle was more than half won but that some of his dogs might be in danger, he sprang from the sled. The next instant with the butt of his rifle he crushed the skull of a wolf whose fangs were tearing at the throat of a dog. The wolf, crumpling over, lay quivering in death.
As he bent over the prostrate dog he saw that it was Sport.
Frightened, bewildered, disheartened by the crack-crack of the newcomer’s rifle, the remnant of the wolf-pack took to its heels. Soon save for the growl and whine of dogs, silence reigned in meadow and forest.
The man with the rifle stepped forward. To Joe’s surprise he saw that it was Jennings.