rced upon him, he wanted plenty of room
and the chance to keep all his adversaries in plain view. He gained the
open, with its scattered black stumps and gaunt, ghostly "rampikes"
dotting the radiant silver of the snow, and was some eighty or a
hundred paces beyond the edge of the woods before the wolves appeared.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the gray forms of the pack halt, come
close together, then separate again, hesitating at the venture of the
open. The hesitation was only for a moment, however. Then, in formation
so close that one might have covered the whole pack with a bedquilt,
they came on again. His trained eye had counted six wolves in the pack;
and he was relieved to find that there were not more. From their cries
he had imagined there must have been thirty or forty.

Logan was too wise to run, now that he was in view of his foes. He
stalked on with haughty indifference, till the pack was within
twenty-five or thirty yards of his heels. Then he turned, and spoke,
with an air of sharp, confident authority. Even through their hunger and
their savage madness of pursuit the beasts felt the mastery of his
voice. They paused, irresolutely, then opened out and sat down on their
haunches to see what he would do.

[Illustration: "HE SAW THE GRAY FORMS OF THE PACK."]

After surveying them superciliously for a few seconds, the woodsman
turned again and stalked on, keeping, however, a keen watch over his
shoulder and his axe poised ready for instant use. As soon as he moved
on, the wolves followed, but no longer in their pack formation. Not yet
audacious enough to come within ten or twelve feet of this arrogantly
confident being, whose voice had power to daunt them in the very heat of
their onslaught, they spread out on either side of the trail,
half-surrounding him, and keeping pace with him at a skulking trot.
Their jaws were half-open, their long white fangs were bared in a
snarling grin, and their eyes, all fixed upon him unwinkingly, glinted a
green light of ferocity and hunger.

Little by little they drew closer in, while Logan pretended to ignore
them contemptuously. All at once he felt, almost more than saw, one of
the largest of the pack dart in to spring upon his back. Out went the
bright axe-blade like a flash of blue flame, as he whirled on his heel;
and the wolf dropped with a choked-off yelp, shorn through the neck.
Thrice around him he wheeled the circle of the deadly blade; and the
wolves defe