the wolf had no chance to attack, but by rushing up to his
very front. The red tongue lapped, the fierce teeth were arrayed and the
demon eyes glaring, but the drover quailed not, and the cowardly wolf
stood at bay. The sharp crack of the distant rifle still smote upon the
air and the loud howl still went up over the forest around. The first
faint streaks that deck the sky at morn, the fresh breath of coming day
caught the keen scent of the bloody prowlers, and they began to skulk
off. The drover gave the retreating cowards a farewell shot from his
pistols, tumbled a lank, grey demon over, and the wolf howl soon died
off in the distance.

Daylight now appeared, and the drover crawled from his lair. His loud
_whoop!_ to the disbanded men and drove was answered by the neigh of a
horse, who came galloping up, and proved to be his own good hunter, who
seemed happy indeed to meet his master. Another _whoop-e_ brought a
responsive shout, and finally four men out of the twelve, with seven
horses and a few straggling cattle, were mustered. The forest was strewn
with torn carcasses of cattle and horses, mostly killed by the falling
timber, and partly devoured by the ravenous wolves. A few hundred yards
from the tree where the drover lay, was found a few fragments of
clothes, the knife and rifle, and a half-eaten body of one of the
soldiers. He had fought with the desperation of a mad man, and the dead
and crippled wolves lay as trophies around the bold soldier. In a hollow
near the river they found a horse and man partly eaten up, and several
cattle that had apparently been hotly pursued and torn to death by the
rapacious beasts. They started out in search of the spot from whence the
drover had heard the firing in the night. They soon discovered the
place; at the foot of a large dead sycamore stump, some twelve feet high
lay the carcasses of a dozen or twenty wolves. Each wolf had his scalp
neatly taken off, and his head elaborately bored by the rifle ball. An
Indian ladder, that is, a scrubby saplin', trimmed with footholds left
on it, was laying against the old tree, at the top of which was a sort
of a rude scaffold, contrived, evidently, by a hunter. At a distance, in
a hollow, was seen a great profusion of wolf skulls and bones, but no
sign of a human being could there be traced. The party made a fire, and
as beef lay plenty around, they regaled themselves heartily, after their
night of horror and disaster. Having finished th