nes and scraps of the
previous night's supper.

While thus engaged he tried to make up his mind what course he ought to
pursue--whether to remain where he was until his friends should have
time to find him--for he felt sure that Okematan would escape and reach
the Settlement, in which case a search for him would certainly be set on
foot--or whether he should make a desperate effort to stagger on, and
ultimately, if need be, creep towards home. The pain of his wound was
now so great as to render the latter course almost impossible. He
therefore resolved to wait and give his friends time to institute a
search, trusting to another shot at willow-grouse for a supply of food.

He had scarcely made up his mind to this plan when the rustling in the
bushes was repeated again. Seizing his gun, which he had laid down, Dan
faced round just in time to see the hindquarters and tail of a large
grey wolf disappearing in the bushes.

To say that he felt considerable alarm when he saw this is not to stamp
him with undue timidity, for he would have rejoiced to have had the wolf
in his clutches, then and there, and to engage in single combat with it,
weak though he was. What troubled him was his knowledge of the fact
that the mean spirited and sly brute was noted for its apparent sagacity
in finding out when an intended victim was growing too feeble to show
fight--either from wounds or old age--and its pertinacity and patience
in biding the time when an attack could be made with safety.

Had this horrible creature discerned, by some occult knowledge, that the
sands in his glass were running low? Was it to be his fate to face his
glaring murderer until he had not vital power left to grapple with it,
or to guard his throat from its hideous fangs? These were questions
which forced themselves upon him, and which might well have caused the
stoutest heart to shrink from the threatened and terrible doom.

In the strength of his emotion he had almost fired at a venture at the
spot where the brute had disappeared; but luckily the remembrance that
it was his last charge of ammunition came to him in time, and he had the
resolution to restrain himself even when his finger was on the trigger.

Dan now perceived that he must not venture to remain on the spot where
he had passed the night, because, being surrounded on three sides by
shrubbery, it afforded his grisly foe an opportunity to approach from
any quarter, and spring on him the moment