"Oh, well, I reckon there's deer a-plenty for 'em, an' they're not likely to come too nigh us, lookin' fer trouble. I reckon they ain't much like them Roosian wolves we read about, eh, dad?"
"I reckon," agreed the father. At the same time, it was with a certain satisfaction that he set his foot on his trusty axe, amid the straw in the bottom of the pung.
As the high, quavering voices drew nearer, the horses grew more and more alarmed; but the man soothed them with his voice, and sternly held them in, husbanding their strength lest there should be more heavy going farther ahead. At length, some three hundred yards behind them, they caught a glimpse of their pursuers, four swiftly running shapes.
"Only four!" cried the boy, scornfully, as he patted his little rifle. "I thought there was always more'n that in a pack!"
"You needn't grumble," said the man, with a grin. "It's gittin' home fer breakfast we're after, not fightin' wolves, son!"
The road was so much better now that the man gave the horses their head a little, and the pung flew over the singing snow. But in a few minutes the four wolves, though keeping a distance of a couple of hundred yards, were running abreast of them. The animals were evidently unacquainted with horses or men, and shy about a close investigation. The sled-bells, too, were to them a very suspicious phenomenon. Deer, assuredly, were safer hunting; but they would, at least, keep this strange, new kind of quarry in sight for awhile, to see what might turn up.
For the next half-hour there was no change in the situation. From time to time, where the woods thickened, the wolves would draw nearer to the pung; and the boy, with shining eyes, would lift his rifle. But presently they would sheer off again; and the boy grew more and more scornful. Then came the winter dawn, a creeping, bitter gray, and for a few minutes the forest was an unreal place, full of ghosts, and cold with a cold to pierce the soul. Then, a growing, spreading, pervading glory of pink and lilac and transparent gold. As the light streamed through the trees, the wolves got a clearer view of their quarry; and perceiving in it a something distinctly dangerous, they dropped the chase and faded back into the thickets. The man looked at the boy's disappointed face, and said, smilingly:
"I reckon they was extry-ordinary civil, seein' us home that way through the woods!"
A few moments later the woods were left behind, and the travellers came out among the snowy stump-fields. There below them, half-way down the hill, was home, bathed in the sparkling sun. Smoke was pouring cheerfully from the chimney; and there in the yard was grandfather, bringing in a pail of milk from the barn.
"Mother'll have breakfast jest about ready!" cried the man, his rough face tender and aglow.