ng.

At last, furious and disgusted, both were returning, walking their
horses along a lane bordered with hedges, and they marvelled that their
skill as huntsmen should be baffled by this wolf, and they were suddenly
seized with a mysterious fear.

The elder said:

"That beast is not an ordinary one. You would say it had a mind like a
man."

The younger answered:

"Perhaps we should have a bullet blessed by our cousin, the bishop, or
pray some priest to pronounce the words which are needed."

Then they were silent.

Jean continued:

"Look how red the sun is. The great wolf will do some harm to-night."

He had hardly finished speaking when his horse reared; that of Franqois
began to kick. A large thicket covered with dead leaves opened before
them, and a mammoth beast, entirely gray, jumped up and ran off through
the wood.

Both uttered a kind of grunt of joy, and bending over the necks of their
heavy horses, they threw them forward with an impulse from all their
body, hurling them on at such a pace, urging them, hurrying them away,
exciting them so with voice and with gesture and with spur that the
experienced riders seemed to be carrying the heavy beasts between 4
their thighs and to bear them off as if they were flying.

Thus they went, plunging through the thickets, dashing across the beds
of streams, climbing the hillsides, descending the gorges, and blowing
the horn as loud as they could to attract their people and the dogs.

And now, suddenly, in that mad race, my ancestor struck his forehead
against an enormous branch which split his skull; and he fell dead on
the ground, while his frightened horse took himself off, disappearing in
the gloom which enveloped the woods.

The younger d'Arville stopped quick, leaped to the earth, seized his
brother in his arms, and saw that the brains were escaping from the
wound with the blood.

Then he sat down beside the body, rested the head, disfigured and red,
on his knees, and waited, regarding the immobile face of his elder
brother. Little by little a fear possessed him, a strange fear which he
had never felt before, the fear of the dark, the fear of loneliness, the
fear of the deserted wood, and the fear also of the weird wolf who had
just killed his brother to avenge himself upon them both.

The gloom thickened; the acute cold made the trees crack. Francois got
up, shivering, unable to remain there longer, feeling himself growing
faint. Nothing was to be