nk, Ernest; shall we remain on our horses here in
the valley or climb the hills?"

"I should say wait here, Harry; in the first place, because it
is the least trouble, and in the second, because I think he is as
likely to come this way as any other. At any rate we may as well
dismount here, and let horses crop that piece of fresh grass until
we hear the horn that will tell us when the dogs have been turned
into the thicket to drive him out."

It was half an hour before they heard the distant note of the horn.

"They have begun," Ernest exclaimed; "we had better mount at once.
If the brute is still there he is just as likely, being such an
old hand at the sport, to make a bolt at once, instead of waiting
until the dogs are close to him."

"What are we to do if we see him?" Harry asked.

"We are to shoot him if we can. If we miss him, or he glides past
before we can get a shot, we must follow shouting, so as to guide
the rest as to the direction he is taking."

"My chance of hitting him is not great," Harry said. "I am not a
very good shot even on my feet; but sitting in my saddle I do not
think it likely I should get anywhere near him."

A quarter of an hour passed. The occasional note of a dog and the
shouts of the men encouraging them to work their way through the
dense thicket could be heard, but no sound of a shot met their
ears.

"Either he is not there at all, or he is lying very close," Ernest
said.

"Look, look!" Harry said suddenly, pointing through the trees to
the right.

"That is the wolf, sure enough," Ernest exclaimed. "Come along."

The two lads spurred their horses and rode recklessly through the
trees towards the great gray beast, who seemed to flit like a shadow
past them.

"Mind the boughs, Ernest, or you will be swept from your saddle.
Hurrah! The trees are more open in front."

But although the horses were going at the top of their speed they
scarcely seemed to gain on the wolf, who, as it seemed to them,
kept his distance ahead without any great exertion.

"We shall never catch him," Harry exclaimed after they had ridden
for nearly half an hour, and the laboured panting of the horses
showed that they could not long maintain the pace.

Suddenly, ten yards ahead of the wolf, a man, armed with
a hatchet, stepped out from behind a tree directly in its way. He
was a wood-cutter whose attention being called by the sound of the
galloping feet of the horses, had left his half-hewn tree