old boy knew what he was talking about. But it is kind
of rough on a man to roll them all up into one bundle and hand it to
him right on the kick-off."

He had heard of men who became lost in the woods and died horribly of
cold and starvation, or went down to the rush of the wolf-pack.

"As long as I stick to this road I won't get lost," he thought. "I may
freeze to death, or starve, or furnish a cozy meal for the wolves
yonder, but even at that I still have the edge on those others--I'm
damned if I'm _lost_!"

And, strange as it may seem, the thought gave him much comfort.

He tossed more wood on the fire and watched the shower of sparks which
shot high above the flames.

"To-morrow will be my busy day," he remarked, addressing the wolves.
"Good night, you hell-hounds! Just stick around and see that nothing
sneaks up and bites me."

He hurled a blazing firebrand among the foremost of the hungry hoard,
but these did not retreat--merely leaped back, snarling, to lurk in the
outer shadows.

Bill's sleep was fitful. The snow ceased to fall during the early hours
of the night, and the pair of blankets with which he had provided
himself proved entirely inadequate protection against the steadily
increasing cold.

Time and again he awoke and replenished the fire, for, no matter in
what position he lay, one side of his body seemed freezing, while the
other toasted uncomfortably in the hot glare of the flames. And
always--just at the rim of the fire-light--sat the wolves, waiting in
their ominous circle of silence.

But in the interims between these awakenings he slept profoundly,
oblivious alike to discomfort and danger--as the dead sleep.

At the first hint of dawn Bill hastily consumed the last of his
unpalatable food and resumed his journey.

Hour after hour he toiled through the snow, and always the wolf-pack
followed, haunting his trail in the open roadway and flanking him in
the deep shade of the evergreen forest, moving tirelessly through the
loose snow in long, slow leaps.

Seventeen of them he counted--seventeen murderous, ill-visaged curs of
the savage kill! And the leader of the pack was a very demon wolf. A
monstrous female, almost pure white, huge, misshapen, hideous--the
ultimate harridan of the wolf-breed--she stood a full two hands above
the tallest of the rank and file of her evil clan.

The foot and half of a foreleg had been left between iron jaws where
she had gnawed herself out of a trap,