of
ice would be firmly cemented together.

Hardly had he lifted the last piece to its place, when the pack came
rushing about him, snapping and snarling, but at first not testing the
strength of his intrenchment. When soon they began to spring against
it, and snap at the corners of ice, the frost had done its work, and
they could not loosen his hastily built wall.

Through narrow crevices he could look out at them, and at one time
counted sixteen grouped together in council. As the cold increased he
had to keep in motion in order not to freeze, and any extra action on
his part increased the fierceness of the wolves. At times they would
gather in a circle around him, and after sniffing at him eagerly, set
up a doleful howling, as if deploring the excellent supper they had
lost.

Ere long one of them found an opening at a corner large enough to
admit its head; but Evan was on the alert, and gave it such a blow
with the axe as to cause its death. Soon another tried the same thing,
and met with the same reception, withdrawing and whirling around
several times, and then dropping dead with a broken skull.

One smaller than the rest attempting to enter, and receiving the fatal
blow, crawled, in its dying agony, completely into the enclosure, and
lay dead at Evan's feet. Of this he was not sorry, as his feet were
bitterly cold, and the warm carcass of the animal served to relieve
them.

In the course of the night six wolves were killed as they sought to
creep into his fortress, and several others so seriously hacked as
to send them to the woods again; and, however correct the notion that
when on the hunt they devour their fallen comrades, in this case they
did no such thing, as in the morning the six dead bodies lay about
on the ice, and Evan had the profitable privilege of taking off their
skins.

Of his thoughts during the night, a quotation from his diary is
quaintly suggestive and characteristic.

"I bethought me of the wars of Glendower, which I have read about, and
the battle of Grosmont Castle; and I said, 'I am Owen Glendower;
this is my castle; the wolves are the army of Henry; but I will never
surrender or yield as did Glendower.'"

Toward morning, as the change of weather continued, and the waters of
the river began to diminish, there was suddenly a prodigious crack and
crash of the ice-bridge, and the whole mass settled several inches.
At this the wolves took alarm, and in an instant fled. Perhaps they
m