be very bad for your leg, comrade?"

"No worse than it will be for your back, Punch."

"But wouldn't it be better if we had a good rest to-night?"

"Where?" said Pen bluntly.

"In some goat-keeper's cottage. We saw goats before we came here, and
there must be people who keep them."

"Perhaps so," said Pen; "but I have seen no cottages."

"We ain't looked," said Punch.

"No, and I don't think it would be very wise to look for them in the
dark. Come, Punch, don't be a coward."

"I ain't one; but I can't stand going tramping about in these mountains
with those horrid beasts hunting you, smelling you out and following you
wherever you go."

"I don't believe they would dare to come near us if we shouted at them,"
said Pen firmly; "and we needn't be satisfied with that, for if they
came near and we fired at them they would never come near us again."

"Yes, we have got the guns," said the boy; and he unslung the one he
carried and began to try the charge with the ramrod. "Hadn't you better
see if yours is all right too?" he said.

"Perhaps I had," was the reply, "for we might have to use them for
business that had nothing to do with wolves."

As he spoke, Pen followed his comrade's example, driving the cartridge
and bullet well home, and then feeling whether the powder was up in the
pan.

"Oh, I say," cried the boy huskily, "there they go again! They're
coming down from high up the mountains. Hadn't we better go lower down
and try and find some cottage?"

"I don't think so," said Pen sturdily.

"But we might find one, you know--an empty one, just the same as we did
before, when my back was so bad. Then we could shut ourselves in and
laugh at the wolves if they came."

"We don't want to laugh at the wolves," said Pen jocularly. "And it
might make them savage. I know I used to have a dog and I could always
put him in a rage by laughing at him and calling him names."

"And now you are laughing at me. I can't help it. I am ashamed
perhaps; but, knowing what I do about the wolves, and what our chaps
have seen--Ugh! It's horrid! There they go again. Let's get lower
down."

"To where the French are lying in camp, so that they may get hold of us
again? Nonsense, Punch! What was the good of our slipping away if it
was only to give ourselves up?"

"But we didn't know then that we should run up against these wolves."

"We are not going to run up against them, Punch, but they are going to
run away