“Mount! Quick! They are coming!”
“Then what’s the good of mounting, you infernal coward?” said the Major, snatching up his gun. “We can’t race wolves.”
The guide made no answer; but, slipping his horse’s halter, vaulted to his back, and might have ridden away but that Head turned his gun-barrel on him.
“You stay where you are.... Now, Sanders, we must keep them off the horses if we can. Fire the moment they show their noses, and trust to their eating up their brothers while we——Look out!”
A pack of over forty wolves came yelping through 91 the trees, with a strange, bouncing motion which showed that even they were seriously impeded by the snow.
“Fire; and keep one eye on the redskin,” muttered Head.
A wolf went down before the servant’s first barrel and, from the break in their ranks, several of the others appeared to be falling on the carcase. A second and third and fourth fell to the guns; but the wolves had smelt horse-flesh, and neither noise nor gunpowder nor dead comrades could keep them from following up the scent. The two white men reloaded, fired, and loaded again with the coolness habitual with soldiers; but it was plain enough that the pack would not be kept off much longer.
“I’m afraid we shall have to give up the horses after all,” said Head, as the foremost wolves bounded contemptuously past or over the last of their number that had been shot.
“Why do you not mount?” bawled the Indian in his ear. Head had forgotten his existence for the moment. “That is the only way to save your horse. You have had your play; let me show you what the red man can do.” As he finished speaking he methodically pulled his quiver forward and began to pour arrows into the howling pack more swiftly than the eye could follow them, every one of them carrying death to a wolf.
“Up, Sanders, and use your pistols! By Jingo, that fellow was right!” shouted Head as he leapt into his saddle.