ld stand ready
to give them a second volley immediately, if they continued to advance
upon us; and that then those who had fired at first, should not pretend
to load their fusils again, but stand ready, with every one a pistol,
for we were all armed with a fusil and a pair of pistols each man; so we
were, by this method, able to fire six vollies, half of us at a time;
however, at present we had no necessity; for, upon firing the first
volley, the enemy made a full stop, being terrified, as well with the
noise as with the fire; four of them being shot in the head, dropped;
several others were wounded, and went bleeding off, as we could see by
the snow. I found they stopped, but did not immediately retreat;
whereupon, remembering that I had been told, that the fiercest creatures
were terrified at the voice of a man, I caused all our company to halloo
as loud as we could, and I found the notion not altogether mistaken; for
upon our shout, they began to retire, and turn about; then I ordered a
second volley to be fired in their rear, which put them to the gallop,
and away they went to the woods.

This gave us leisure to charge our pieces again, and that we might lose
no time, we kept doing; but we had but little more than loaded our
fusils, and put ourselves into a readiness, when we heard a terrible
noise in the same wood on our left; only that it was farther onward the
same way we were to go.

The night was coming on, and the night began to be dusky, which made it
the worse on our side; but, the noise increasing, we could easily
perceive that it was the howling and yelling of those hellish creatures;
and, on a sudden, we perceived two or three troops of wolves on our
left, one behind us, and one on our front, so that we seemed to be
surrounded with them; however, as they did not fall upon us, we kept our
way forward, as fast as we could make our horses go, which, the way
being very rough, was only a good large trot; and in this manner we only
came in view of the entrance of the wood through which we were to pass,
at the farther side of the plain; but we were greatly surprised, when,
coming near the lane, or pass, we saw a confused number of wolves
standing just at the entrance.

On a sudden, at another opening of the wood, we heard the noise of a
gun; and, looking that way, out rushed a horse, with a saddle and a
bridle on him, flying like the wind, and sixteen or seventeen wolves
after him full speed: indeed the horse