ening at a dinner party, I heard several anecdotes about wolves,
of which I preserve two.

"I was once," said a gentleman, "pursued by ten or twelve wolves. One
horse fell and we had just time to cut the traces of the other,
overturn our sleigh and get under as in a cage, before the wolves
overtook us. We thought the free horse would run to the village and
the people would come to rescue us. What was our surprise to see him
charge upon the wolves, kill two with his hoofs and drive away the
rest. When the other horse recovered we harnessed our team and drove
home."

"And I," said another, "was once attacked when on foot. I wore a new
pelisse of sheep-skin and a pair of reindeer-skin boots. Wolves are
fond of deer and sheep, and they eat skin and all when they have a
chance. The brutes stripped off my pelisse and boots without harming
my skin. Just as I was preparing to give them my woolen trousers, some
peasants came to my relief." Although I feared my auditors would be
incredulous, I told the story of David Crockett when treed by a
hundred or more prairie wolves. "I shot away all my ammunition, and
threw away my gun and knife among them, but it was no use. Finally, I
thought I would try the effect of music and began to sing 'Old
Hundred.' Before I finished the first verse every wolf put his fore
paws to his ears and galloped off."

My story did not produce the same results upon my audience, but almost
as marked a one, for all appreciated its humor, and before I had
fairly finished a burst of laughter resounded through the room, and it
was unanimously voted that Americans could excel in all things, not
excepting Wolf Stories.

[Illustration: TAIL PIECE]

CHAPTER XLVIII.

The many vehicles in motion made a good road twelve hours after the
storm ceased. The thermometer fell quite low, and the sharp frost
hardened the track and enabled the horses to run rapidly. I found the
temperature varying from 25 deg. to 40 deg. below zero at different
exposures. This was cold enough, in fact, too cold for comfort, and we
were obliged to put on all our furs. When fully wrapped I could have
filled the eye of any match-making parent in Christendom, so far as
quantity is concerned. The doctor walked as if the icy and inhospitable
North had been his dwelling-place for a dozen generations, and promised
to continue so a few hundred years longer. We were about as agile as a
pair of prize hogs, or the fat boy in the side show o