was
counting on the likelihood of his soon being near enough to fire, when
suddenly the joyful barking of the dog changed to a prodigious howl of
agony. With redoubled speed Ivan pushed ahead, and, presently, at a
distance of about two gunshots, he saw two small black objects lying on
the snow covered with blood.

They were the remains of Dolk, who, having come up with the reindeer and
driven it into a small brook, was keeping it there until Ivan arrived,
when a hungry wolf had leaped down the side of a rock and, seizing him
in his powerful jaws, had bitten him in half. The wolf had evidently
intended to eat Dolk, but, catching sight of Ivan, had made off.

Ivan was inconsolable. Dolk had hunted with him as a puppy of six months
old, and for eight years the dog had never let him know a hungry day.
Ivan had been offered ten reindeer for him, but he would not have parted
with him for any number, and without Dolk he knew not how to show
himself at home, for both his mother and sisters were devoted to the
faithful animal.

Determined on vengeance, Ivan followed the wolf's tracks, which led, by
an unfamiliar path, to the mouth of a vast and gloomy cavern. There he
lost sight of them, and he was deliberating what to do next, when a loud
peal of silvery laughter broke on his ears and awoke the silent echoes
of the grim walls around him. Ivan started in open-mouthed astonishment.
Standing before him was a girl more lovely--ten thousand times more
lovely--than any woman he had hitherto seen. To the magic of a beautiful
form in woman--the necromancy of female grace--there was no more ready
and willing subject than Ivan; and here, at last, he had found grace
personified, incarnate, the highest ideal of all his wildest and most
cherished dreams. His most magnificent "castle" had never contained a
princess half as fair as this one. Her figure was rather above the
medium height, supple and slender. Her feet and hands were small, her
wrists well rounded, her fingers long and white, and tipped with pink
and glossy almond-shaped nails--if anything a trifle too long. But it
was her face that so attracted Ivan as to almost hold him
spellbound--the neat and delicately moulded features all in perfect
harmony; the daintily cut lips; the white gleaming teeth; the low
forehead crowned with golden curls; the long, thick-lashed, blue eyes
that looked steadily into his, and seemed to read his very soul.

Moreover, in her blue eyes there was b