ottom of the pung.

As the high, quavering voices drew nearer, the horses grew more and
more alarmed; but the man soothed them with his voice, and sternly
held them in, husbanding their strength lest there should be more
heavy going farther ahead. At length, some three hundred yards behind
them, they caught a glimpse of their pursuers, four swiftly running
shapes.

"Only four!" cried the boy, scornfully, as he patted his little
rifle. "I thought there was always more'n that in a pack!"

"You needn't grumble," said the man, with a grin. "It's gittin' home
fer breakfast we're after, not fightin' wolves, son!"

The road was so much better now that the man gave the horses their
head a little, and the pung flew over the singing snow. But in a few
minutes the four wolves, though keeping a distance of a couple of
hundred yards, were running abreast of them. The animals were
evidently unacquainted with horses or men, and shy about a close
investigation. The sled-bells, too, were to them a very suspicious
phenomenon. Deer, assuredly, were safer hunting; but they would, at
least, keep this strange, new kind of quarry in sight for awhile, to
see what might turn up.

For the next half-hour there was no change in the situation. From time
to time, where the woods thickened, the wolves would draw nearer to
the pung; and the boy, with shining eyes, would lift his rifle. But
presently they would sheer off again; and the boy grew more and more
scornful. Then came the winter dawn, a creeping, bitter gray, and for
a few minutes the forest was an unreal place, full of ghosts, and cold
with a cold to pierce the soul. Then, a growing, spreading, pervading
glory of pink and lilac and transparent gold. As the light streamed
through the trees, the wolves got a clearer view of their quarry; and
perceiving in it a something distinctly dangerous, they dropped the
chase and faded back into the thickets. The man looked at the boy's
disappointed face, and said, smilingly:

"I reckon they was extry-ordinary civil, seein' us home that way
through the woods!"

A few moments later the woods were left behind, and the travellers
came out among the snowy stump-fields. There below them, half-way down
the hill, was home, bathed in the sparkling sun. Smoke was pouring
cheerfully from the chimney; and there in the yard was grandfather,
bringing in a pail of milk from the barn.

"Mother'll have breakfast jest about ready!" cried the man, his rough
face