med to take
counsel within herself, whether this was the continuation of her sweet
dreams. The providential joint had come very opportunely to the mother
of seven whelps. Two or three of these were still clinging to her
hanging udders, and left her only that she might prepare herself for the
fight. The old animal merely yawned loudly,--in a man it would be called
a laugh,--a yawn that declared her delight in robbery, and with her
slatternly tail beat her lean, hollow sides. The mare, seeing that her
foe was in no hurry for the combat, came nearer, bowed her head to the
earth, and in this manner stepped slowly forward, sniffing at the enemy;
when the wolf seemed in the act of springing on her neck she suddenly
turned, and dealt a savage kick at the wolf's chin that broke one of its
great front teeth. Then the furious wild creature, snarling and hissing,
darted upon the steed, which at the second attack kicked so viciously
with both hind legs that the wolf turned a complete somersault in the
air; but this only served to make it more furious: gnashing its teeth,
its mouth foaming and bloody, it sprang a third time upon the mare, only
to receive from the sharp hoof a long wound in its breast; but that was
not all: before it could rise from the ground, the mare dealt another
blow that crushed one of its fore paws.

The wolf then gave up the battle. Terrified, with broken teeth and feet,
it hobbled off from the scene of the encounter, and soon appeared on the
roof of the rick. The coward had sought a place of refuge from the
victorious foe, whither that foe could not follow it.

The steed galloped round the rick: she wished to deceive her enemy, who
merely sat on the roof licking its broken leg, its bruised side, and
bloody jaws.

All at once the proud mare halted, with a haughtier look than man is
capable of, as who might say: "You are not coming?"

Suddenly she seized one of the whelps in her teeth. They had slunk out
of the hollow, whining after their mother. She shook it cruelly in the
air, then dashed it to the ground violently so that in a moment its
cries ceased.

The mother-wolf hissed with agonized fury on the roof of the rick.

The mare seized another one of the whelps and shook it in the air.

As she grasped the third by the neck, the mother, mad with rage, leaped
down upon her from the pile and, with the energy of despair, made so
fierce an assault that her claws reached the steed's neck; but her
crushed l