“The wolves were now growing too wary to thrust their heads under the gunwale. For a time they merely sniffed along the edge; and though we might easily have smashed their toes or the ends of their noses, we refrained in order to gain opportunity for something more effective.
“We must have waited thus for as much as ten minutes, and the inaction was becoming intolerable, when the brutes, thinking perhaps we were dead or gone to sleep, made a sudden concerted effort to reach us. There must have been a dozen heads at once thrust in beneath the gunwale. One preternaturally lean wolf even wriggled his shoulders fairly through, so that he was within an ace of taking a mouthful out of my leg before I could have a fair blow at him with my hatchet.
“I think we either killed or disabled four at least in that assault. Thereupon the pack drew off a little, and sat down on their haunches to consider.
“They could not possibly have been still hungry, having eaten two or three wolves and a hundred pounds or so of nice fresh salmon, and we were in hopes they would go away.
“But instead of that they came back to the boat, and set up a tremendous howling, which may have been a call for re-enforcements, or a challenge to come out and settle the trouble in a square fight.
“I asked Frank how many cartridges he had left.
“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘a dozen or more, at least!’
“‘Verily well,’ said I; ‘you’d better blaze away and kill as many as you can. I’ll protect my ear-drums by stuffing my ears full of rags. Try and make every shot tell.’
“As the wolves were not more than eight or ten feet away, the heavy bird-shot had the same effect as a bullet. Two of the brutes were clean bowled over. Then the others sprang furiously upon the boat. When Frank thrust forth the muzzle of the gun, it was seized and all but wrenched from his grasp. He bagged two more; then the rest moved round to the other side of the boat.
“But very soon the survivors appeared to make up their minds to a new departure; and after a little running hither and thither with their noses down, they suddenly crystallized, as it were, into a well-ordered pack, and swept away up the shore. Their strange, terrible, wind-like ululations were soon re-echoing in the mountains.