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with their guns ready, on each side of the hut, and wait with beating hearts the arrival of the expected four-footed visitors. Nine o'clock passes--ten, half-past--not a sound is heard in the forest; the sportsmen who look out on the snowy scene around them observe nothing; all without is dreary silence, broken at intervals by the poor ruminating creatures in front, the cry of a solitary owl, the fall of some dead branch which age and the tempest has separated from the giant oak, the sudden spring of the squirrel awakened by the noise, and, in the interior of the cabin, by the soft gurgling of the ruby wine escaping joyfully from its glass prison-house, to cheer the heart of the impatient _chasseur_--and who knows better than he how to empty a flask of genuine Burgundy? We will, therefore, imagine some of the party enjoying themselves after this fashion; when suddenly the calves are heard to rise, to bellow and groan, strain at the ropes with which they are fastened, and endeavour to escape; every cigar is at once extinguished, the comic changes to the serious--the wolves are on the scent. A few minutes more, and black spots are seen dotted about here and there on the snow; these increase in number and approach,--they are the wolves that observe and listen; the frantic terror of the calves is redoubled; the black spots become larger, they advance still nearer, and at length the animals may clearly be distinguished. The wolves imagine the calves have come astray. What a charming thing if they could carry them off to the dark ravines they inhabit! The great square hut, silent as Harpocrates, and the smell of man, make them hesitate; but a hunger of many days (and we know that man, the image of his Maker, will eat man, his fellow, in his extremity) and the smell of blood prevail and overcome their fears. Four or five wolves rush forward, and endeavour to remove the calves; the attempt is vain, the ropes are strong, and so are the posts to which the animals are fastened: unable, therefore, to succeed, and stretched across their dying victims, they plunge their ravenous jaws into the palpitating flesh, forget their alarm in so delicious a supper, and eat and drink to their heart's content. The rest of the pack thus encouraged, and afraid of being too late, now advance at a gallop to share in the repast. It is then, and amid the yells, the disputes, and the bloody encounters occasioned by a division of the spoil, that the
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