Chapter X: The Fight with a Wolf Pack

“Hear un! Hear un coming!” exclaimed Andy in a hushed voice.

“’Tis just back there in th’ bush, but I can’t see un!” said David, under his breath.

“Take a shot, anyhow,” suggested Andy, who had lashed his own rifle on the load, that he might carry an ax, which was constantly required in the work about the traps.

“Not till we sees un,” David objected. “Pop says never shoot at what you don’t see.”

They hurried a little now, though pausing frequently to peer into the forest gloom behind them. Twilight was thickening. The thing, whatever it was, that followed them was growing bolder and less careful to conceal its movements. With little effort they could quite plainly hear the tread of soft footfalls on places where the snow was covered by an icy crust. It was not, however, until the stovepipe of the tilt, standing in black silhouette above a great snowdrift that nearly covered the little log building, had risen into view, that Andy, looking back, exclaimed:

“There ’tis, now! There ’tis! Wolves!”

David stopped, and turning about beheld five great fearsome gray creatures. It was at least a relief to know what manner of beast stalked them. There is attached to a hidden, skulking enemy a mystery that accentuates the sense of peril. But now the danger was real enough.

When the boys stopped, the wolves stopped also, and in full view sat upon their haunches, with lolling red tongues, greedily observing their intended victims. They were not above fifty yards distant, and a cold chill ran up the lads’ spines as they beheld them.

“Shoot now!” said Andy, tensely, after a moment’s silence.

Dropping the hauling rope of the toboggan from his shoulders, David without a word slipped his rifle from the loose sealskin case in which he carried it, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger.

“Snap!” went the hammer, but there was no explosion.

A wolf sprang to his feet, and baring his ugly white fangs emitted a snarl that sent a fresh tingle down the boys’ spines.

“The firing pin is froze!” exclaimed David, again cocking the rifle and aiming.

Again there was a snap but no explosion. Again he tried, and again the cartridge failed to explode.

“Pick up th’ gun case, Andy, and walk ahead,” directed David, in a voice tense with excitement, as he readjusted the hauling ropes upon his shoulders. “Don’t run, now, b’y, and don’t hurry. Pop says never run from wolves. If you do, they’re like t’ close in on us.”

“We’re most to th’ tilt,” said Andy nervously, as he obeyed David’s instructions and set forward, with David in the rear, at their usual pace.

When David and Andy moved the wolves followed. With every step they gradually but perceptibly drew a little closer. When the outline of the tilt appeared through the thickening twilight the animals were not ten yards behind the nervous, frightened boys. David, glancing back, could see the bristling hair above the powerful shoulders, and the ugly red lolling muzzles of the beasts.

“Get in quick and light th’ candle, Andy!” he directed when at last they reached the door. “Hurry, now! They’re like t’ rush any minute!”

Snow had drifted against the door and clogged it, and it seemed to David that Andy would never get it open. The wolves were edging closer--closer--closer. They were not twenty feet away when at last the doorway was cleared and Andy sprang into the tilt, shouting to David to hurry, while he nervously lighted the candle.

In momentary fear of being charged by the pack and torn to bits, David had stood facing the wolves as they edged in, inch by inch. Andy’s shout, and the flare of the candle within the tilt brought assurance of safety, and with his face still to the wolves he backed into the door, drawing the toboggan after him.

“Come, Andy, now, help me pull her! Help me pull her!” David shouted, tugging with frenzied energy at the loaded and unwieldly toboggan.

Lashed upon the toboggan were their sleeping bags and two of the finest martens they had captured during the winter. If he abandoned it, David was well aware that the wolves would destroy everything it contained, and with never a thought that the wolves would be so bold as to attempt to follow him and Andy into the tilt, he determined also to save their belongings.

Andy sprang to his assistance, and the two boys pulled with all their strength, but as they might well have known, the toboggan was quite too long for the narrow tilt, and when they had drawn it in as far as they could, an end still blocked the doorway, and they could not close the door.

Then it was that the heads of two wolves, ravenous, and grown exceeding bold, fearless even of the candle light, appeared at the entrance, determined, it was apparent, to make an attack, whether or no.

David, in desperation, instinctively seized his rifle, threw it to his shoulder, with the muzzle almost touching the leading wolf, and pulled the trigger.

There was an explosion, a snarl, and the wolf fell at David’s feet. The frozen firing pin was at last released. With lightning speed he threw forward and drew back the lever, and fired again, and the other wolf fell. Stooping low, with the rifle still at his shoulder, he discovered the three other wolves slinking in the twilight just outside the door, and again his rifle rang death to a wolf, But this was to be his last victim, for the two remaining animals turned, and faded in the gathering gloom.

“’Twas a narrow escape!” exclaimed Andy, sitting limply down upon the edge of a bunk.

“That it was!” and David, no less excited and relieved, was visibly shaking.

“They might have got us!” said Andy, weakly.

“They might have, but they didn’t, and they didn’t get th’ martens or tear up our sleeping bags, either,” and the trembling but proud David seated himself by Andy’s side, to recover his composure.

“You kept your grit, and were wonderful brave, Davy,” said Andy admiringly.

“Oh, ’twasn’t anything,” and David, with a brave show, arose and began unlashing the toboggan. “You kept your grit just as much, Andy. If you had run, or hadn’t got the door open or the candle lit, we’d sure been killed.”

“’Twere fine th’ gun went off, but ’tis strange she didn’t go off when you tried her before,” suggested Andy.

“If I’d tried un once more out where we first saw th’ wolves, she’d have gone off, but I gives up too soon,” said David. “Th’ tryin’ I did loosed th’ ice around th’ firin’ pin. I just _had_ t’ try un when th’ wolves started in after us; and she were all right.”

And so it is, much too often in life. We give up too soon. We would turn many a failure into success if we would but keep on trying, and doing our best, and not permit ourselves to become discouraged.

When the toboggan was unloaded they took it out, dragged in the dead wolves where they would not freeze, and after they had kindled a fire and eaten their supper, removed the pelts from the three, and fine big pelts they were.