hion, and the wolves were soon cleared from above
their prostrate victim. His attack quelled the courage of the pack for a
little, and even the leader shrank away, howling dolefully. But the
respite was not sufficient to allow Enoch to reload his gun.

When the brutes fell back, the man upon the ice showed that he was by no
means dead, though his exhaustion was plain. He struggled to his knees,
and reaching up seized the hunting-knife from Enoch's belt, and the
small axe with which the latter had cut the ice away from his traps.
With one of these weapons in each hand he crouched in readiness to
defend himself when the wolves should renew their attack.

And he had not long to wait, for both hunger and natural ferocity urged
them on. Suddenly the leader, with a savage snarl which fairly turned
the blood cold in Enoch's veins, cast itself full at him!

Raised upon his hind legs the old timber-wolf, the hero of a thousand
fights with other pack-leaders, or with the young upstarts of his own
tribe, was fully as tall as his antagonist. The sight of its wide red
jaws, from which the froth flew as it does from the lips of a mad dog,
the gleaming yellow teeth, the capacious throat which seemed fairly to
steam with the fetid breath expelled from the beast's lungs, almost
overcame young Harding. For the moment he was enthralled by the
terrifying appearance of the wolf, and his arms lacked the strength
necessary to swing his gun.

[Illustration: THE WOLF SPRANG AT HIS THROAT]

The charge would surely have overborne him had Enoch not slipped upon
the ice as he shrank back, and providentially he fell upon one knee. The
wolf had sprung at his throat and the pioneer lad's sinking to the ice
caused the beast to leap clear over both the human actors in the drama.
But as its lean gray body flashed past, the stranger reached up and with
Enoch's keen hunting-knife slit a great wound in the exposed body. A
wild yell rose above the clamor of the pack and the old wolf rolled over
and over on the ice in the agonies of death, the blood spurting from the
wound at every pump of its heart.

Instantly half the pack sprang upon the dying leader, every male
desiring to be master, and all doubtless bearing upon their own bodies
marks of the wounded beast's displeasure. This change of front enabled
Enoch to recover both his equilibrium and his presence of mind; and when
the other beasts gathered courage to attack him in turn, he was ready to
beat