deep bay comes again, hard, metallic, resonant, nearer! He
feels the snow-shoe slipping, but dare not pause. A great drift thrusts
across his way and the shadow in front runs slower. They are gaining on
him. He hardly knows whether the crunch of snow and pantings for breath
are his own or his pursuers'. At the crest of the drift he braces
himself and goes to the bottom with the swiftness of a sled on a slide.

The slant moonlight throws another shadow on the snow at his heels.

It is the leader of the pack. The man turns, and tosses up his arms--an
Indian trick to stop pursuit. Then he fires. The ravening hunter of man
that has been ambushing him half the day rolls over with a piercing
howl.

The man is off and away.

If he only had the quick rifle, with which white men and a body-guard of
guides hunt down a single quarry, he would be safe enough now. But the
old musket is slow loading, and speed will serve him better than another
shot.

Then the snow-shoe noose slips completely over his instep to his ankle,
throwing the racquet on edge and clogging him back. Before he can right
it they are upon him. There is nothing for it now but to face and fight
to the last breath. His hood falls back, and he wheels with the
moonlight full in his eyes and the Northern Lights waving their mystic
flames high overhead. On one side, far away, are the tepee peaks of the
lodges; on the other, the solemn, shadowy, snow-wreathed trees, like
funeral watchers--watchers of how many brave deaths in a desolate,
lonely land where no man raises a cross to him who fought well and died
without fear!

The wolf-pack attacks in two ways. In front, by burying the red-gummed
fangs in the victim's throat; in the rear, by snapping at sinews of the
runner's legs--called hamstringing. Who taught them this devilish
ingenuity of attack? The same hard master who teaches the Indian to be
as merciless as he is brave--hunger!

[Illustration: They dodge the coming sweep of the uplifted arm.]

Catching the muzzle of his gun, he beats back the snapping red mouths
with the butt of his weapon; and the foremost beasts roll under.

But the wolves are fighting from zest of the chase now, as much as from
hunger. Leaping over their dead fellows, they dodge the coming sweep of
the uplifted arm, and crouch to spring. A great brute is reaching for
the forward bound; but a mean, small wolf sneaks to the rear of the
hunter's fighting shadow. When the man swings his ar