appened to Karay--the borzoi was
suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together down into a gully just in
front of them.

That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully
with the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and
outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears
laid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest moment
of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to dismount
and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from among that
mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the gully. She
clicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the throat), leaped with
a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having disengaged
herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went forward. Karay,
his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded, climbed with
difficulty out of the gully.

"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in despair.

"Uncle's" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the wolf's
path and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance. She was
again hemmed in.

Nicholas and his attendant, with "Uncle" and his huntsman, were all
riding round the wolf, crying "ulyulyu!" shouting and preparing to
dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward
again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she
would be safe.

Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,
had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the wolf, and checked
his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the
horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for
safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight
toward the wood, just as Karay had run to cut the animal off. As a
result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been
stopped a second time by "Uncle's" borzois.

Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and
thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if
it were a flail.

Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing
heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel
lying on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the
ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself
that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears a