were
engaged; but, as I said, I called my other man; and giving him a horn of
powder, I bade him lay a train all along the piece of timber, and let it
be a large train; he did so, and had but time to get away, when the
wolves came up to it, and some were got up upon it; when I, snapping an
uncharged pistol close to the powder, set it on fire; and those that
were upon the timber were scorched with it, and six or seven of them
fell, or rather jumped in among us, with the force and fright of the
fire; we dispatched these in an instant, and the rest were so frighted
with the light, which the night, for now it was very near dark, made
more terrible, that they drew back a little.

Upon which I ordered our last pistols to be fired off in one volley, and
after that we gave a shout; upon this the wolves turned tail, and we
sallied immediately upon near twenty lame ones, which we found
struggling on the ground, and fell a-cutting them with our swords, which
answered our expectation; for the crying and howling they made were
better understood by their fellows; so that they fled and left us.

We had, first and last, killed about three score of them; and had it
been daylight, we had killed many more. The field of battle being thus
cleared, we made forward again; for we had still near a league to go. We
heard the ravenous creatures howl and yell in the woods as we went,
several times; and sometimes we fancied we saw some of them, but the
snow dazzling our eyes, we were not certain; so in about an hour more we
came to the town, where we were to lodge, which we found in a terrible
fright, and all in arms; for it seems, that, the night before, the
wolves and some bears had broken into that village, and put them in a
terrible fright; and they were obliged to keep guard night and day, but
especially in the night, to preserve their cattle, and indeed
their people.

The next morning our guide was so ill, and his limbs so swelled with the
rankling of his two wounds, that he could go no farther; so we were
obliged to take a new guide there, and go to Tholouse, where we found a
warm climate, a fruitful pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves, or
any thing like them; but when we told our story at Tholouse, they told
us it was nothing but what was ordinary in the great forest at the foot
of the mountains, especially when the snow lay on the ground; but they
inquired much what kind of a guide we had gotten, that would venture to
bring us tha