WOLVES!
Wolves! The name was terrifying enough. But their cry, that
long-drawn-out, hungry call, gave the picnickers a chill of
apprehension.
"We must take the nearest way out of the wood, Reddy," exclaimed Tom.
"They are still several miles off, and, if we hurry, we may reach the
open before they do."
All started on a run, David helping Anne to keep up with the others
while Reddy looked after Jessica. Nora and Grace were well enough
trained in outdoor exercise to run without any assistance from the boys.
Indeed, Grace Harlowe could out-run most boys of her own age.
"Go straight to your left," called Reddy, consulting his compass as he
hurried Jessica over the snow.
Again they heard the angry howl of the wolves, and the last time it
seemed much nearer.
"It's a terrible business, this running after a heavy meal," muttered
Hippy, gasping for breath as he stumbled along in the track of his
friends. "I'll make a nice meal for 'em if they catch me," he added,
"and it looks as if I'd be the first to go."
"Reddy, are you sure you're right?" called Tom. "The woods don't seem to
be thinning out as they are likely to do toward the edge."
"Keep going," called Reddy, confident of the direction. "You see, we had
gone pretty far in, but I believe the open country is about a mile this
way."
A mile? Good heavens! Jessica and Anne were already stumbling from
exhaustion, while Hippy was quite winded. Another five minutes of this
and at least three of the party would be food for wolves, unless
something could be done. So thought David, who, breathless and light
headed, was now almost carrying Anne.
"Hurrah!" cried Grace, who had been running ahead of the others. "Here's
Jean's hut!"
There, sure enough, right in front of them, was a little house built of
logs and mud.
Had it been put in that particular spot years ago just to save their
eight lives now? Anne wondered vaguely as she blindly stumbled on.
As Grace lifted the wooden latch of the door, she looked over her
shoulder. Not three hundred yards away loped five gaunt, gray animals.
Their tongues hung limply from the sides of their mouths and their eyes
glowered with a fierce hunger.
"Hurry!" she cried, in an agony of fear. "Oh, hurry!"
Tom and David were carrying Anne now, while Jessica was half staggering,
assisted by Nora and Reddy. Hippy, the perspiration pouring from his
face, brought up the rear, and they had scarcely pulled him in and
barred the door before the wolves had reached the hut and were leaping
against the walls howling and snarling.
Nobody spoke for some time. Those who were not too tired were busy
thinking.
What was to be done? Eight young people, on a bitter cold winter
afternoon, shut up in a hut in the middle of a forest while five
half-starved wolves besieged the door.
Presently Tom Gray began to look about him.
There was a fireplace in the hut, which, by great good luck, contained
the remains of a large backlog. More fuel was stacked in the corner,
chiefly brushwood and sticks. He made a fire at once and the others
gathered around the blaze, for they felt the penetrating chill now,
after their rapid and exhausting flight through the forest.
"Here's a rifle," exclaimed Grace, who was also exploring, while Tom
kindled the fire.
"Good!" cried Tom. "Let's see it. It may be our salvation."
He seized the gun and examined the barrel, but, alas, there was only one
shot left in it. They searched the hut for more cartridges, but not one
could they find.
In the meantime the wolves, which might have been taken for large collie
dogs at a little distance, were trotting around the house, leaping
against the door and windows and occasionally giving a blood-curdling
howl.
"Suppose you feed me to them?" groaned Hippy. "You could get almost to
Oakdale before they finished me."
The suggestion seemed to break the apprehensive silence that had settled
down upon them, and they burst out laughing, one and all; even Anne, who
was lying on a bearskin in front of the fire.
"I suppose the beasts were driven down from the hills by hunger, and
when they smelled the fat bacon frying, the woods couldn't hold them,"
observed David. "I have always heard that a hungry wolf could smell
something to eat on another planet."
"Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Nora. "If we leave this
charming abode of Jean's, we shall be eaten alive, and if we stay in it
we shall starve."
"You won't starve for a while yet, child. You have only just eaten. You
remind me of the story of the people who were locked up in a vault in a
cemetery. They divided the candle into notches and decided to eat a
notch apiece every day. They had just finished the last notch, and were
expecting to die at any moment of starvation, when somebody unlocked the
door, and how long do you suppose they had been shut up!"
"Several days, I suppose," answered Nora, "since they appeared to have
eaten several notches."
"Not at all," replied David. "Only three hours."
"I'd rather be in a vault, with the dead, than out here," observed
Hippy.
"Are we such poor company as all that, Fatty!" laughed Reddy.
"I've made a great find," announced Tom Gray in the midst of their
chatter. He was standing on a bench examining something on a shelf
suspended from the ceiling.
"What?" demanded the others in great excitement.
"A pair of snowshoes," he answered.
There was a disappointed silence.
"Well, don't all speak at once," said Tom at last. "Don't you agree with
me that it's a great find?"
"We are sorry we can't enthuse," answered David, "but we fail to see how
snow shoes can help us out of our present predicament."
"Nobody here knows how to use them," continued Reddy, "and even if he
did, he couldn't out-run a pack of wolves."
"I know how to use them," exclaimed Tom. "I learned it in Canada a few
winters ago, but I will admit I couldn't beat the wolves in a race.
However, the shoes may come in handy yet."
Just then one of the wolves threw his body against the door and the
small cabin shook with the force of the blow.
"By Jove!" exclaimed David, "I thought they had us then. Another blow
like that and the old latch might give way."
They looked about them for something to place against the door, but
there was not a stick of furniture in the room. Even the bed, in one
corner, was made of pine boughs and skins.
"I wonder how there happens to be only five wolves," said Anne. "I
thought they went about in large packs."
"They are probably mama and papa and the whole family," replied Hippy.
"The smallest, friskiest ones, I think, are young ladies, by the way
they switched along behind the others and hung back kind of shy-like."
"Now, Hippy Wingate, don't tell us such a romance as that," warned
Grace, "when you were so winded you could hardly look in front of you,
much less behind you."
At that moment there was another crash against the door while two gray
paws and the tip of a pointed muzzle could be seen on one of the window
sills.
"It's almost three o'clock," said Tom Gray, looking at his watch. "I
think we'll have to do something, or we shall be penned here all night.
Now, what shall it be? Suppose we have a friendly council and consider."
"All right," said David; "the meeting is open for suggestions. What do
you advise, Anne?"
Anne smiled thoughtfully.
"I have no advice to offer," she said, "unless you shoot one of the
wolves and let the others eat him up. Perhaps that would take the edge
off their appetites."
"No, that would only serve as an appetizer," answered David. "After they
had eaten one member of the family they would be still hungrier for
another."
"And yet that isn't a half bad idea," said Tom, "and for two reasons.
Did you notice a path which began at the hut and which was evidently
Jean's trail? I saw it from the corner of my eye as I ran."
No, the others had not noticed anything of the sort. But who would stop
to think of trails with a pack of hungry wolves at his heels?
Tom's training in the woods had taught him to take in such details, and
consequently he had noticed it particularly. Moreover, the trail led
straight to the left, presumably toward the west.
"Now, this is what I propose to do," he continued, taking down the
snowshoes and looking over their straps and fastenings carefully.
"Reddy, who, I hear, is a good shot, must climb up at one of the windows
and shoot the first wolf he sees. Eating the dead wolf would probably
occupy the attention of his brothers for some ten minutes or so--perhaps
longer. While they are busy I shall make off on the snowshoes. With that
much of a start, and with plenty of tasty human beings close at hand, I
doubt if they even follow me. If they do, why I'll just shin up a tree.
But I believe I can beat them. I'm pretty good on snowshoes."
"Tom Gray, you shan't do it!" cried Grace. "It may mean sure death. How
do you know the wolves won't seize you the moment you open the door?
Besides, you don't know the way. Suppose you should get lost?"
"No, no," insisted Tom. "None of these things will happen. I know
positively that a hungry wolf will stop chasing a human being and eat up
a dead wolf, or a shoe, or a rug, or anything that happens to be thrown
to him. I never was surer of anything in my life than that I can get
away from here before the beasts know it."
There was a storm of protestation from the others, but Tom Gray finally
overruled every objection and they reluctantly consented to let him go.
It was arranged that Reddy should stand on a bench by one of the small
windows and attract the attention of the wolves by throwing out a rabbit
skin that was nailed to one of the walls. While the beasts were tearing
this to pieces he was to shoot one of them. Furthermore, the instant the
live wolves had finished devouring the dead one, Reddy was to pitch out
another skin, of which there were many about the hut, of foxes, rabbits
and other small animals, which the trapper had collected.
This, they agreed, would probably keep the wolves occupied for awhile,
until Tom had got a good start down the trail.
Tom slipped his feet in the snowshoes and stood by the door waiting.
While the wolves howled and fought over the rabbit skin, bang went the
rifle.
"I got him!" cried Reddy.
In an instant Tom Gray had flung open the door and was off down the
trail.
As he had expected, the live wolves were hungrily eating the dead one
and had not apparently even noticed his departure.
The boys and girls in the hut sat breathlessly waiting, while Reddy
watched the famished animals gorge themselves with the blood and fresh
meat of their comrade.
Reddy had rolled up a fox skin into a small bundle, and was prepared to
pitch it out to them the moment they had finished.
Just as they had lapped the last drop of blood, he cast out the skin.
They sniffed at it a moment, gave a long, disapproving howl, that sent
the cold chills down the spines of the prisoners, and then made off down
the trail after Tom Gray.
Reddy gave a loud exclamation and jumped down from the bench.
"_They have followed Tom!_" he cried, in a high state of excitement.
There was a long pause.
"We'll have to go, then," said David finally. "Girls, you are safe as
long as you stay inside the hut, and some of us at least will be able to
bring help before long."
With that, all three of the boys, for Hippy was no coward, in spite of
his size and appetite, rushed out of the hut and disappeared in the
wood.
The afternoon shadows were beginning to lengthen when Grace fastened the
latch and returned to the fire where her three friends sat silent,
afraid to speak for fear of giving way to tears.