ever old
Bob had gone before or ever would go again. Excitement made the lad's
blood boil in his veins, and he determined to show fight. The moon had
risen, and the scene was almost as light as day. Now he could count
the crowding host of his enemies, and just as he broke from the forest
road into the old clearing, he turned in his saddle and fired. The
foremost of the pack rolled over and over; the rest gathered around
and tore their leader in pieces.

By the time they resumed the chase, Allan was a hundred yards ahead
with his rifle loaded. He determined to make a running fight of it to
the hill, where he was sure of meeting his father, or could take to a
tree and shoot until help came. This had hardly flashed through his
brain when, right ahead of him, a detachment of the pack sprang into
the road and answered with double yells the cries of the rest coming
up behind. The horse wheeled suddenly, almost unseating Allan, and
dashed across the clearing toward the wood; but he had not taken a
dozen bounds when a wolf sprang upon him. Old Bob reared and fell,
pitching Allan nearly twenty feet ahead, and was covered with wolves
before he could regain his footing. That was the last of poor old Bob.

[Illustration: "OLD BOB FELL, PITCHING ALLAN AHEAD."]

But Allan! What of him? When he recovered from the effects of the
shock, he found himself over head and ears in snow. He had no idea
where he was, but struggled and plunged in vain endeavors to extricate
himself, until at last he broke into a space that was clear of snow,
but dark as Erebus, damp and close. Feeling about him he discovered
over his head logs resting slantingly against the upper edge of a pit,
and then he knew that he was in the cellar of the old house his father
had built, and which had been burned down nine years before! The
cellar was full of snow, except at the corner roofed over by the
fallen logs, and Allan, bursting through the snow into the empty
corner, was as secure from the wolves as though seated by his father's
fireside. It was not nearly as cold in there as outside, and he found
a dry spot upon which he lay down to think.

He was in no danger of freezing to death, his food would keep him from
starvation a week at least, and Allan concluded that, with the first
glimpse of dawn, his father would be in search of him, and, following
the tracks, find old Bob's bones, and quickly rescue him from his
predicament. He reasoned wisely enough, but the e