moment, forgetting all pain, he dragged himself and the trap towards an
oak tree, against which he placed his back.

Here leaning with his left hand upon a stout staff he had with him when
he fell, and having in his right his hatchet ready to strike, the young
man, full of courage, after having offered up a short prayer to his God,
and embraced, as it were, in his mind his poor old mother and his bride,
awaited the horrible result, determined to show himself a true child of
the forest, and meet his fate like a man. A few minutes more, and he was
as if surrounded by a cordon of yellow flames, which, like so many
Will-o'-the-wisps, danced about in all directions. These were the eyes
of the monsters; the animals themselves, which he could not see, sent
forth their horrible yells full in his face, and the smell of their
horrid carcases was borne to him on the wind. Alas! the _denouement_ of
the tragedy approached. The wolves had hit upon the scented line of
earth, and following it; hungry and enraged, were bounding here and
there, and exciting each other. They had arrived at the baited spot....

What passed after this no one can tell--no eye saw but His above: but on
the following morning when the Pere Seguin, for he was the unfortunate
person who set the _Traquenard_, came to examine it, he found the trap
at the foot of the oak deluged with blood, the bone of a human leg
upright between the iron teeth, and all around, scattered about the turf
and the path, a quantity of human remains: bits of hair, bones,--red and
moist, as if the flesh had been but recently torn from them,--shreds of
a coat, and other articles of clothing were also discovered near the
spot; with the assistance of some dogs that were put on the scent, three
wolves, their heads and bodies cut open with a hatchet, were found dying
in the adjacent thickets. The bones of their victim were carried to the
nearest church; and on the following day these mournful fragments, which
had only a few hours before been full of life and youth and health, were
committed to the earth.

When the venerated _cure_ of the village, after previously endeavouring
in every possible way by Christian exhortation to prepare his aged
mother to hear the sad tale, informed her that these remnants of
humanity was all that was left of her boy, she laughed--alas! it was the
laugh of madness--reason had fled! Many a time have I met the aged
creature strolling in a glade of the forest, or sea