Part 6 (1/2)
She had never heard any sound just like that; it was not savage, nor very loud, but so cadence It res that she had heard in the Settles But she knew there were no dogs in the forest
Just as she was beginning to lose her breath and slacken her pace, that terrible cry cah the trees, th to her tired little feet, and she fled on faster than ever, her red lips open and her eyes wide Another slight turn of the trail, and it ran onceon and on till it narrowed fro track was Dave to be seen Lidey had noever, but one thought in her quivering brain, and that was to keep running and get to her father before those dreadful voices could overtake her She knew they were coone about two hundred yards beyond the last bend of the trail, she noticed, a few steps ahead of her, a tiny clearing, and at its farther edge the gable of a little hut rising a couple of feet above the snow She knew the place She had played in it that su It was a place that had been occupied by lonely trappers and luave the child a momentary sense of comfort, of companionshi+p in the dreadful wild She paused, uncertain whether to continue along the trail or to seek the shelter of the e of her own little footsteps stopped, however, she was instantly aware of the padding of other feet behind her Looking back, she saw a pack of grey beasts just cos But Lidey knew they were not dogs She had seen pictures of them--awful pictures She had read stories of them which had frozen her blood as she read Now, her very bones seemed to melt within her They olves! For a moment her throat could forly, and rushed for the hut
As she reached it, the wolves were hardly a dozen paces behind The door stood half open, but drifted full of snoithin littlethe child dived head first, like a rabbit, crept behind the door, and fell upon the snow, gasping, too horror-stricken to make any outcry
A step from the hut door the wolves halted abruptly The half-buried hut, and the dark hole leading into it--these were things they did not understand, except that they recognized the to erous In that dark hole they suspected a trap The leader went up to it, and al But he backed away sharply as if he had met with a blow on the snout, and his nostrils wrinkled in savage en in the hut It see flat on her stoh the narrow crack with eyes that seelitter of the ely to and fro, and heard their steps as they cautiously circled the hut, seeking another entrance They kept about five or six feet distant from it at first, so suspicious were they of that reeted the leader's first atteation
When they had prowled about the hut for several minutes, they all sat down on their haunches before the door and see her through and through, as they searched her out through the crack and penetrated her vain hiding
Suddenly, while the eyes of all the pack were fla upon her, she saw the leader coainst the crack of the door In a sort of madness she struck at it with her little, mittened hand The wolf, apparently still disconcerted by theback warily Then the whole pack drew a foot or two closer to the open doorway Ravenous though they were, they were not yet assured that the hut was not a trap They were not yet quite ready to crawl in and secure their prey But gradually they were edging nearer A few e, would creep in Already he had accustomed himself to the menace of that scent Now, he did creep in, as far as the , white teeth appeared around the edge of the door At the sight Lidey's voice returned to her
Shrinking back against the farthest wall, she gave shriek after shriek that seemed to tear the dreadful stillness In the madness of her terror she hardly noticed that the wolf's head was suddenly withdrawn
III
When Dave Patton set out for the Settle air so bracing, and his own heart so light with hope and health, that he was able toless than a day and a half Out of this time he had allowed himself four hours for sleep, in an old lumber camp beside the trail At the Settlement, which boasted severalfro of fertilizer or a bedroo such gay-coloured trifles, together with ht would meet Lidey's anticipations When he went to his wife's people, he found that all had so to add to his Santa Claus pack, for Mary as well as for the little one; and he hugged hiht of what a Christ to be in the lonely wilderness cabin He had bought two or three things for his wife; and when he shouldered his pack, slinging it high and strapping it close that it ht not flop with his rapid stride, he found the burden no light one But the lightness of his heart ht he took but two hours' sleep in the old lu to reach hoo wrong First the pack, as packs soalled his shoulders obstinately Again and again he paused and tried to readjust it But in vain Finally he had to stop, undo the bundle, and rearrange every article in it, before he could induce it to ”carry” smoothly
Half an hour later, as he turned a step off the trail to get a drink at a bubbling spring, that kept open all through the bitterest winter, he caught his snowshoe on a buried branch and fell forward, breaking the frary impatience he attee, such as he thought ht see him to the end of his journey But the poor one a h toout a piece of ash, whittling down a couple of thin but tough strips, and splicing the break securely with the strong ”salmon twine” that he always carried Even so, he realized that to avoid further delay he would have to go cautiously and hue to hi after Lidey's bed-tiet home
As the rotesque figure that danced fantastically along the snow before him
As the moon climbed the icy heaven, the shadow shortened and acquired edly onward, too tired to think, Dave amused himself with the antics of the shadohich seemed responsible for a portion of the crisp music that came from his snowshoes
Frohost of sound that drifted towards hi cry, which sonize it But he felt that it was nothing human It came from somewhere between himself and home, however; and he instinctively quickened his steps, thinking with satisfaction of the snug and armed cabin that sheltered his dear ones
[Illustration: ”Where anything fro of fertilizer could be purchased”]
Presently the long cry sounded again, nearer and clearer now, and tremulous Dave had heard wolves before, in Labrador and in the West
Had he not been quite sure that wolves were unknown in this part of the country, he would have sworn that the sound was the hunting cry of a wolf-pack But the idea was impossible He had no sooner made up his mind to this, however, than the cry was repeated once ed his mind That the sound meant wolves was not only possible, but certain It filled hi marauders had come into the country
It was soondirectly towards hiathered, too, that they were in pursuit of some quarry Dave had the eastern woodse pack; and he soon decided that this pack was a small one He did not think that it would dare to face hinized the reet their dread of man That in such case his axe would be an all-sufficient defence he did not doubt But he was in a fierce hurry to get hoht For athese night foragers a wide berth Then he remembered his uncertain snowshoes The snoould be very soft off the trail, and there would be the chance of breaking the shoe again Who was he, to be turned out of his path by a bunch of wild curs? It was the snow-shoe that settled it He set his jaws gri his axe, and pressed forward The clamour of the pack was now so near and loud that it quite drowned one single, piercing cry of ”Father!” that would otherwise have reached his ears There was a new note in the howling, too, which Dave's ear interpreted as ht Then the noise stopped abruptly, save for an impatient yelp or two
”Whatever it be they're after, it's took to cover,” said Dave to himself ”An' in the old shanty, too!” he added, as he saw the little patch of clearing open before hi to occupy fully their attention, he now crept noiselessly forward just within the edge of the wood Peering forth fro hemlock branch, he saw the roof of the hut, the half-open doorway nearly choked with snow, and the wolves prowling and sniffing around it, but keeping a couple of yards away
”Scairt of a trap!” he thought to hirin, and cursed his luck that he had not his rifle with hiht--”what a coat they'dones--enough to ly for oneto keep the their attention to hio around by the other side of the clearing and avoid trouble
He drew back as silently as a lynx Where the woods overhead were thick, the snoas soft, with no crispness on the surface; and instead of the crunching that his steps made on the trail, here the snow h
Dave had taken several paces in retreat, when an idea flashed up that arrested hi the hut, when their quarry was certainly inside? Their dread of a trap was not, of itself, quite enough to explain their caution The thought gave him a qualm of uneasiness He would return and have another look at theot the better of hi for him at ho, wasting his tiot a fox cornered in the old shanty? Dave felt sure it was a fox But no! He could not escape the conviction--itive were a fox, or any other aniry wolves o in after him
What if it should be so his way into the Settle!