ll
I?"--"All right," he replied, and backed the horse. "We'll
catch him in a trice, and then I'll guide you out. Come on."

We set out, The Wolf in advance, I behind him. God knows how he
found the road, but he rarely halted, and then only to listen
to the sound of the axe. "You see," he muttered between his
teeth. "You hear? do you hear?" "But where?" The Wolf shrugged
his shoulders. We decended into a ravine, the wind died down
for an instant, measured blows clearly reached my ear. The Wolf
glanced at me and shook his head. We went on, over the wet
ferns and nettles. A dull, prolonged roar rang out....

"He has felled it," muttered The Wolf.

In the meantime the sky had continued to clear; it was almost
light in the forest. We made our way out of the ravine at last.
"Wait here," the forester whispered to me, bent over, and
raising his gun aloft, vanished among the bushes. I began to
listen with strained intentness. Athwart the constant noise of
the wind, I thought I discerned faint sounds not far away: an
axe was cautiously chopping on branches, a horse was snorting.

"Where art thou going? Halt!" the iron voice of The Wolf
suddenly thundered out. Another voice cried out plaintively,
like a hare.... A struggle began. "Thou li-iest. Thou
li-iest," repeated The Wolf, panting; "thou shalt not escape."
... I dashed forward in the direction of the noise, and ran to
the scene of battle, stumbling at every step. Beside the felled
tree on the earth the forester was moving about: he held the
thief beneath him, and was engaged in tying the man's hands
behind his back with his girdle. I stepped up. The Wolf rose,
and set him on his feet. I beheld a peasant, soaked, in rags,
with a long, disheveled beard. A miserable little nag,
half-covered with a small, stiff mat, stood hard by, with the
running-gear of a cart. The forester uttered not a word; the
peasant also maintained silence, and merely shook his head.

"Let him go," I whispered in The Wolf's ear. "I will pay for
the tree."

The Wolf, without replying, grasped the horse's foretop with
his left hand; with his right he held the thief by the belt.
"Come, move on, simpleton!" he ejaculated surlily.

"Take my axe yonder," muttered the peasant. "Why should it be
wasted," said the