om
his back, ripped open the mouth of it, and emptied out the writhing roll
of blanket upon the snow at his feet,--while the wolves, eyeing this
new procedure with suspicion, held back a few moments before again
closing in. As the bundle fell, Logan seized one corner of the blanket,
and with a dexterous twist and throw unrolled it, landing the prisoner
almost under the noses of the wolves.

Bewildered for an instant, the lynx had no time to bound back and scurry
up the steep face of the rock to safety. He had no sooner gained his
feet than the whole pack was upon him. With a screech of fury he
proclaimed his understanding of the crisis, and turned every tooth and
claw into the fray. His fangs, of course, were no match for those of any
one of his assailants; but his claws were weapons of such quality that
no single wolf could have withstood him. As it was, the wolves in their
eagerness got in one another's way; and as the mass of them smothered
the lynx down, more than one got eviscerating slashes that sent them
yelping out of battle.

For a few breathless seconds Logan watched the fight, glowing with
excited approval over his late captive's prowess. Then he realized the
time had come when he must take a hand, or find himself again at a
disadvantage. Silently he darted upon the screeching, growling heap
with his light axe. So skilled was he in all the woodsman's sleights,
that even in so brief time as takes to tell it, three more of the pack
were down, kicking and dying silently on the snow. The leader of the
pack, the side of his neck redly furrowed and the lust of battle hot in
his veins, wheeled, and jumped madly at Logan's throat. But the woodsman
met him with a terrific short-handled upward stroke, which fairly split
his ribs and hurled him over backwards. On the instant the remaining
wolves, who had each suffered something in the melee, concluded that the
game was up. Leaping away from the reach of those deadly-ripping claws,
they turned and ran off like whipped dogs.

Bleeding from a dozen gashes, bedraggled and battered, but still full of
fight to every outspread claw, the lynx crouched and glared at the man,
with ears flattened back and eyes shooting pallid flame. For some
seconds the two faced each other, the man grinning with approval. Then
it occurred to him that the maddened beast, in despair of escape, might
spring at him and compel him to strike, which, in his present
sympathetic and grateful mood, he w