urtains, and a good fire,
you might have had some reason for your hopes; but let me assure them
that our ideas of comfort arise from comparison. The first night I
slept in a feather bed after my camp life I caught the worst cold I ever
had. Well, leaving the dead body of the wolf where he had fallen, I
took the precaution to make up the fire with the remaining sticks I had
collected, and lay down once more to enjoy the sweets of repose. Can it
be believed! I had not been ten minutes wrapped in the arms of
Morpheus, when I was again roused out of them by a terrific snarling and
barking and growling. I looked up. There, as I expected, were the
wolves, unnatural brutes, tearing away at the carcass of their ancient
kinsman, and quarrelling over his limbs. "If that is what you are
about, my boys, you are welcome to your sport, only let me alone," said
I to myself; and leaning back I was immediately fast asleep again. The
truth is, not having had a comfortable night's rest for some time, I was
very sleepy, which will account for my apparent indifference to the near
neighbourhood of such unsatisfactory gentry.

In spite of snarling, and barking, and howling, and growling, and every
other variety of noise which the genus _canis_, whether in a tame or
wild state, is capable of making, I slept on. To be sure I could not
help dreaming about them; sometimes that they were running off with my
ten toes, then with my fingers; then that a big fellow had got an
awkward grip at my nose. The last dream, which was so particularly
unpleasant, made me lift up my hand to ascertain whether that ornament
of the human visage was in its proper place, when I felt several hot
puffs of air blow on my cheek, and opening my eyes I beheld the glaring
orbs of half a dozen wolves gazing down upon me over my barricade. Had
not my dream given me warning, in another instant they would have been
upon me. As it was, they seemed inclined to make a spring and to finish
the drama by eating me up, which I calculated they would have done in
ten minutes, when, seizing my spear, I swept it round, and as I knocked
one off after the other the loud yelling they made showed the force of
the blows I had, in my desperation, dealt on them.

I then got up, and scraping a portion of the fire within reach of my
hands, I kept the ends of a number of sticks burning in it, and as soon
as the wolves came back, which they did not fail to do, I hove one at
their noses.