The prospect of being besieged all night in a tree by a pack of mountain
wolves was not a pleasant one by any means, and Fred, who had climbed
up among the branches with the object of securing a few hours' slumber,
found little chance of closing his eyes for even a minute.
“It might have been worse,” he reflected, as he listened to the dismal
howling, “for if they had happened to come down upon me when I was
walking along the ravine, I could n't have gotten into any place like
this in time to save me. Wolves don't know how to climb trees, and so
long as I stay here I'm all right; but I can't stay here forever.”
By-and-by there was a sharp pattering upon the ground, and then the
hoarse howling changed to quick, dog-like yelps, such as these animals
emit when leaping down upon their prey, and which may be supposed to
mean exultation.
Fred came down sufficiently far from his perch to get a glimpse of the
ground beneath. He saw nearly a score of huge mountain wolves, bounding
hither and thither, and over each other, and back and forth, as though
going through some preliminary exercise, so as to prepare themselves for
the feast that was soon to be theirs.
“If I was down there,” thought the boy, with a shudder, “I suppose I'd
last them about two minutes, and then they'd be hungrier than ever.
They'll stay there all night, but I wonder if they'll go away in the
morning. If they don't, I can't tell what's to become of me.”
He watched them awhile with a lingering fear that some of them might
manage to get among the branches, but they did not make the attempt.
They had sufficient dexterity to leap from the ground up among the
lowermost limbs, but had no power of retaining their position, or doing
anything after they got there.
Nature had unfitted them for such work, and they did not try it. They
seemed to possess tireless activity, and they kept up their leaping and
frolicing as though they had nothing else in the world to do.
After watching them until he was tired, Fred carefully climbed up among
the branches again, where he secured himself as firmly as was possible.
He had lain his rifle across a couple of limbs above his head, and fixed
upon a place within a dozen feet or so of the top, as the one offering
the best support.
Here two or three limbs were gnarled and twisted in such a way that he
could seat himself and arrange his body in such a way that he could have
enjoyed a night's slumber with as much refreshment as if stretched out
upon a blanket on the ground. But the serenade below was not calculated
to soothe his nerves into soft, downy sleep, and he shuddered at
the thought of sitting where he was for four or five hours, with the
pattering feet below him, varied by a yelp or howl, when he should feel
disposed to close his eyes.
“But, then, it can't be helped,” he added to himself, endeavoring to
look philosophically at the matter. “I ought to be thankful that they
didn't catch me before I reached the tree, and so I am; and I would be
very thankful, too, if they would go away and leave me alone. I've got a
bed here twice as good as I expected to find, and could sleep as well as
anywhere else.”
Almost any sound long continued becomes monotonous, and thus it was that
scarcely a half-hour had passed when, in spite of the dreadful beasts
below, his eyes began to grow heavy and his head to droop.
But at this juncture he received a terrible shock. Just as everything
was becoming dreamy and unreal, he was startled by a jarring of the
tree, as though struck with some heavy object. When it was repeated
several times, his senses returned to him, and he raised his head and
listened.
“I wonder what that can be?” he said to himself. “Is some one hitting
the tree? No, it isn't that.”
It seemed not so much a jarring of the trunk as a swaying of the whole
tree.
Puzzled and alarmed, Fred drew his legs from their rather cramped
position, and picked his way downward among the limbs until he had
descended far enough to inform himself.
“Heaven save me! they're in the tree!” he gasped, paralyzed for the
moment with terror.
In one sense, such was the case. The frolicsome wolves had varied their
amusement by springing upward among the lowermost branches. A brute
would make a jump, and, landing upon the limb, sustain himself until
one or two of his comrades imitated his performance, when they would all
come tumbling to the ground.
Thus, it may be said, they were climbing the tree, but they were
scarcely in it when they were out of it again, and Fred had nothing to
fear from that source.
In his fright, he hastily clambered back again after his rifle, with the
intention of shooting the one that was nearest, but by the time he
laid his hand upon the weapon his terror had lessened so much that
he concluded to wait until assured that it was necessary. And a few
minutes' waiting convinced him that he had nothing to fear from that
source. It was only another phase of the hilarious fun they were keeping
up for their own amusement.
“I guess I'll try it again,” concluded Fred, as he proceeded to stow his
arms and legs into position for the nap which he came so near commencing
a few minutes before.
He did not consider it within the range of possibility that he could
unconsciously displace his limbs during sleep sufficiently to permit him
to fall.
He heard the yelping and occasional baying below, the rustling among the
limbs, and the undulation caused by the animals leaping upward among the
branches; but they ceased to disturb him after a time, and became like
the sound of falling water in the ears of the hunter by his camp-fire.
It was not long before slumber stole away his senses, and he slept.
A healthful boy generally sleeps well, and is untroubled by dreams,
unless he has been indulging in some indiscretion in the way of diet,
but the stirring scenes of the last few days were so impressed upon the
mind of Fred that they reappeared in his visions of night, as he lived
them all over again. He was again standing in the silent wood along the
Rio Pecos, with Mickey O'Rooney, watching for the stealthy approach of
the Apaches. As time passed, he saw the excited figure of Sut Simpson
the scout, as he came thundering over the prairie, with his warning cry
of the approach of the red-skins. The rattling fight in front of the
young settlement, the repulse of the Apaches, the swoop of Lone Wolf and
the lad's capture, the night ride, the encampment among the mountains,
his own singular escape, and, finally, his siege by the mountain
wolves--all these passed through the mind of the sleeping lad, and
finally settled down to a hand-to-hand fight with the leader of the
brutes.
Fred fancied that the two had met in the ravine, and, clubbing his
gun, he whacked the beast over his head every time he leaped at him.
He struck him royal, resounding blows, too, but, somehow or other, they
failed to produce any effect. The wolf kept coming and coming again,
until, at last, the boy concluded he would wind up the bout by jumping
upon, and throwing him down, and then deliberately choking him to death.
He made the jump, and awakening instantly, found he had leaped “out of
bed,” and was falling downward through the limbs. It all flashed upon
the lad with the suddenness of lightning.
He remembered the ravenous wolves, and, with a shuddering horror which
cannot be pictured or imagined, felt that he was dropping directly into
their fangs. It was the instinct of nature which caused him to throw out
his feet and hands in the hope of checking his fall.
By a hair's breadth he succeeded. But it was nearly the lowermost limb
which he grasped with his desperate clutch, and hung with his arms
dangling within reach of the wolves below.
The famished brutes seemed to be expecting this choice tid-bit to drop
into their maws, and their yelps and howls became wilder than ever, and
they nearly broke each other's necks in their furious frolicing back and
forth.
The moment young Munson succeeded in checking himself, he made a quick
effort to draw up his feet and regain his place beyond the reach of the
brutes. It was done in a twinkling, but not soon enough to escape one of
the creatures, which made a leap and fastened upon his foot.
The lad was just twisting himself over the limb, when he felt one of his
shoes seized in the jaws of a wolf. The sudden addition to his weight
drew him down again, and almost jerked his hold from the limb, in which
event he would have been snapped up and disposed of before he could have
made a struggle in the way of resistance. But he held on, and with an
unnatural spasm of strength, drew himself and the clogging weight part
way up, kicking both feet with the fury of despair.
The wolf held fast to one shoe, while the heel of the other was jammed
into his eyes. This, however, would not have dislodged him, had not
his own comrades interfered, and defeated the brute by their own eager
greediness. Seeing that the first one had fastened to the prize, a
half-dozen of them began leaping upward with the purpose of securing a
share in the same. In this way they got into each other's way, and all
came tumbling to the ground in a heap.
Before they could repeat the performance the terrified lad was a dozen
feet beyond their reach, and climbing still higher.
When Fred reached his former perch, he was in doubt whether he should
halt or go still higher. His heart was throbbing violently, and he was
white and panting from the frightful shock he had received.
“That was awful!” he gasped, as he reflected upon what had taken place.
“I don't know what saved me from death! Yes, I do; it was God!” he
added, looking up through the leaves to the clear, moonlit sky above
him. “He has brought me through a good many dangers, and He will not
forsake me.”
After such an experience, it was impossible that sleep should return to
the eyes of the lad. He resumed his old perch, but only because it was
the most comfortable. Had he believed that there was a possibility of
slumber, he would have fought it off, but there was not.
“I'll wait here till morning,” he said to himself. “It must be close at
hand; and then, maybe, they will go away.”
He looked longingly for some sign of the breaking of day, but the
moonlight, for a long time, was unrelieved by the rose-flush of the
morning.