“Yes, and I’ve got him!” Florence laughed in spite of herself.
“Let—let him go! Throw down the rod! Let him go!” Jeanne cried as she came tumbling out from her bed.
But Florence held tight. When the wolf turned about to snap at the line, she reeled in. When he started away, she gave him line, but not too much. There was the venerable moose to consider. Having started the affair, she was determined to finish it.
“Let him go!” Jeanne’s voice dropped to a terrified whisper. “Can’t you see he’s turning? He—he’s coming this way. He’ll eat us!”
Then, calmed by her sense of danger, she rushed back to the half burned out campfire, seized two smouldering sticks and waved them to a red glow. Rushing forward, she threw one at the gray beast who was indeed swimming toward the camping ground.
The flaming stick struck the water with a vicious sizzle. Black on the instant, it nevertheless left its imprint on the wolf’s brain. Once again he wheeled about.
The moose by this time had climbed up the opposite bank and disappeared, as much as to say, “Well, you go ahead and fight it out.”
Strange to say, Florence at this moment began losing her calm assurance. She reeled in when perhaps she should have given line. It was astonishing the way the wolf came in. He had not half the pull of the great fish.
Before she knew it, his feet were on a sandbar. After that it was quite another story. He was not looking for a fight, that wolf. He was looking only for safety. With a mad dash he was down the sandbar, up the bank and into the forest.
Completely unnerved at last, Florence lost all control of the reel. After spinning round and round like mad, it came to a jerking halt. For one split second there was a tremendous strain on the line, then it fell limp.