He was giving us a great
race, but the odds were all against him, and finally we had him
right beside the motor. Leaning far out, Coltman fired quickly. The
bullet struck just behind the brute, and he swerved sharply, missing
the right front wheel by a scant six inches. Before Charles could
turn the car he had gained three hundred yards, but we reached him
again in little more than a mile. As Coltman was about to shoot a
second time, the wolf suddenly dropped from sight. Almost on the
instant the car plunged over a bank four feet in height, landed with
a tremendous shock--and kept on! Charles had seen the danger in a
flash, and had thrown his body against the wheel to hold it steady.
Had he not been an expert driver we should inevitably have turned
upside down and probably all would have been killed.

We stopped an instant to inspect the springs, but by a miracle not a
leaf was broken. The wolf halted, too, and we could see him standing
on a gentle rise with drooping head, his gray sides heaving. He
seemed to be "all in," but to our amazement he was off again like
the wind even before the car had started. During the last three
miles the ground had been changing rapidly, and we soon reached a
stony plain where there was imminent danger of smashing a front
wheel. The wolf was heading directly toward a rocky slope which lay
against the sky like the spiny back of some gigantic monster of the
past.

His strategy had almost won the race. For a moment the wolf rested
on the ridge, and I leaped out to shoot, but instantly he dropped
behind the bowlders. Leaving me to intercept the animal, Charles
swung behind the ridge only to run at full speed into a sandy
pocket. The motor ceased to throb, and the race was ended.

These wolves are sneaking carrion-feeders and as such I detest them,
but this one had "played the game." _For twelve long miles_ he had
kept doggedly at his work without a whimper or a cry of "kamerad."
The brute had outgeneraled us completely, had won by strategy and
magnificent endurance. Whatever he supposed the roaring car to be,
instinct told him that safety lay among the rocks and he led us
there as straight as an arrow's flight.

The animal seemed to take an almost human enjoyment in the way we
had been tricked, for he stood on a hillside half a mile away
watching our efforts to extricate the car. We were in a bad place,
and it was evident that the only method of escape was to remove all
the baggage whi