guns that kill at a distance, an'
ag'in mebbe they've been driv off thar huntin' grounds by the warriors,
an' think we kin take the place o' their reg'lar game."

"Anyway I don't like it."

"Neither do I. Look at that old fellow in the lead. Guess he's called a
giant among 'em. I kin see the slaver fallin' from his mouth. He's
thinkin' o' you, Henry, 'cause there's more meat on you than there is on
me."

"I don't know about that. You'd make a fine dish for the table of the
wolf king. Roasted and served up whole they'd save you for the juicy
finish, the last gorgeous touch to the feast."

"Don't talk that way, Henry. You make me shiver all over. I ain't afeard
o' a wolf, but ef I didn't hev a rifle, an' you wuzn't with me, I'd be
plum' skeered at them twenty back thar, follerin' us lookin' at us an'
slaverin'."

The shiftless one shook his fist at the king wolf, an enormous beast,
the largest that they had ever seen in Kentucky. The whole troop was
following them, their light feet making no noise in the grass and
leaves, but their red eyes and white teeth always gleaming in the
moonlight. They were showing an uncommon daring. Lone hunters had been
killed and eaten in the winter by starving wolves, but it was seldom
that two men in the spring were followed in such a manner. It became
weird, uncanny and ominous.

"I know what's happened," said the shiftless one suddenly. "I kin tell
you why they follow us so bold."

"What's the reason, Sol?"

"You know all them 'normous tigers and hijeous monsters we've been
talkin' 'bout, that's been dead a hundred thousan' years. Thar souls
comin' down through other animals hev gone straight into our pack o'
wolves thar. They ain't wolves really. They're big tigers an' mammoths
an' sech like."

"I'm not disputing what you say, Sol, because I don't know anything
about it, but if it wasn't for raising an alarm I'd shoot that king wolf
there, who is following us so close. I can tell by his eyes that he
expects to eat us both."

"What kind o' tigers wuz it that Paul said lived long ago, an' growed so
monstrous big?"

"Saber-toothed."

"Then that king wolf back thar wuz the king o' the saber-toothed tigers
in his time. He wuz twelve feet high and twenty-five feet long an' he
could carry off on his shoulder the biggest bull buffaler that ever wuz,
an' eat him at a meal."

"That would have been a good deal of a dinner, even for an emperor among
saber-toothed tigers."

"But