e wolfy. On the way
out the driver let his horses run away a few times, like you have seen
in Russian pictures, and dad was beginning to sit up and take notice,
and seemed to act like a man who expects every minute to be thrown over
a precipice and mixed up with dead horses. Dad touched the driver once
on the coat-tail and told him not to hurry so confounded fast, and the
driver thought he was complaining because it was too slow, and he gave
a Comanche yell and threw the lines into the air, and the horses just
skedaddled, and run into a snow bank and tipped over the sledge, and
piled us out on top of dad, but dad only said: "This is getting good."

[Illustration: Piled us out on top of dad 269]

We righted up, and dad wanted to know where all the pups came from that
we had passed. I had been throwing out pieces of meat into the road for
a mile or so, and the dogs were having a picnic. It was getting pretty
dark by this time, and we started back to town, and I threw out my
liver, fastened to the rope, and the Chicago man, who had given the
driver a drink of vodka when we tipped over, told him, in Russian, that
when the dogs began to follow us, to get hold of the liver, to yell
"wolves," and give the team the rein, for a five-mile run, and yell all
the time, because we wanted to give the old gentleman a good time.

Well, uncle, I would have given anything if you could have seen dad,
when the dogs began to chase that liver, and bark and fight each other.
The driver yelled something in Russian, and pointed back with his whip,
the Chicago man said: "My God, we are pursued by a pack of ravenous
wolves, and there is no hope for us," and I began to cry, and implored
dad, if he loved me, to save me.

[Illustration: Dad stood up in the sledge 267]

[Illustration: Pursued by a pack of ravenous wolves 271]

Dad stood up in the sledge and looked back, and saw the wolves, and
he was scared, but he said the only thing to do was to throw something
overboard for them to be chewing on while we got away, but he sat down
and pulled a robe over his head and his lips were moving, but I do not
know whom he was addressing.

The Chicago man touched off a couple of cannon firecrackers behind the
sledge, but that only kept the dogs back for a minute, and dad said
probably the best thing to do was to throw me overboard and let them eat
me, and I said: "Nay, nay, Pauline," and then I think dad fainted away,
for he never peeped again until th