this world."

"You see, Horse Shoe," said Adair, beginning to expostulate, "I don't
like these varmints, no how; that's the reason why. They are cruel
themselves and I like to be cruel to them. It's a downright pleasure to
see them winch, for, bless your soul! they don't mind common
throat-cutting, no more than a calf. Now here's the way to touch their
feelings."

At this moment he applied the point of his knife to separating the hide
from the flesh on either side of the spine, and then, in his eagerness
to accomplish this object, he placed his knife between his teeth and
began to tug at the skin with his hands, accompanying the effort with
muttered expressions of delight at the involuntary and but
ill-suppressed agonies of the brute. The pain, at length became too
acute for the wolf, with all her characteristic habits of submission,
to bear, and, in a desperate struggle that ensued between her and her
tormentor, she succeeded, by a convulsive leap, in extricating herself
from her place of durance. The energy of her effort of deliverance
rescued her from the woodman's hand, and turning short upon her
assailant, she fixed her fangs deep into the fleshy part of his thigh,
where, as the foam fell from her lips, she held on firmly as if
determined to sell her life dearly for the pain she suffered. Adair
uttered a groan from the infliction, and, in the hurry of the instant,
dropped his knife upon the ground. He was thus compelled to bear the
torment of the grip, until he dragged the still pertinaciously-adhering
beast a few paces forward, where, grasping up his knife, he planted it,
by one deeply driven blow, through and through her heart. She silently
fell at his feet, without snarl or bark, releasing her hold only in the
impotency of death.

"Curse her!" cried Adair, "the hard-hearted, bloody-minded devil! That's
the nature of the beast--cruel and wicked to the last, damn her!" he
continued, raving with pain, as he stamped his heel upon her head: "damn
her in the wolf's hell to which she has gone!"

Robinson stood by, unaiding, and not displeased to see the summary
vengeance thus inflicted by the victim upon the oppressor. This calmness
provoked the woodman, who, with that stoicism which belongs to
uncivilized life, seemed determined to take away all pretext for the
sergeant's exultation, by affecting to make light of the injury he had
received.

"I don't mind the scratch of the cursed creature," he said, assuming a