hen the scene would change, and he was crossing the stormy
ocean, or fighting with Red-skins, or thundering after the buffalo on
the wide prairies. But through all the varied fabric of his thoughts
there ran two distinct threads, one golden, the other black. The first
we need hardly say was Elspie McKay; the second was that awful wolf
which sat there glaring at him with a hang-dog expression, with the red
tongue hanging out of its mouth, and from which he never for a moment
allowed his eyes to wander.

As evening began to draw on, the situation became terrible, for Dan felt
that the little strength he had left was fast sinking. The efforts by
which he had succeeded in rousing himself in the earlier parts of the
day were failing of their effect. Then a strange and sudden change
occurred, for, while he knew that the end of the trial was rapidly
approaching, he began to experience a feeling of indifference--the
result, no doubt, of excessive weariness--and almost a wish that all was
over. Nevertheless, whenever that wolf moved, or changed its position
ever so little, the instinct of self-preservation returned in full
force, and Dan, pulling himself together, prepared to defend himself
desperately to the last gasp.

While the two were thus glaring at each other, Dan was startled and
thoroughly aroused from his irresistible lethargy by a loud report.

Next moment he saw the wolf extended dead upon the plain.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

ADVENTURES OF FERGUS AND HIS FRIENDS.

In order to account for the sudden death recorded in the last chapter,
we must turn aside to follow for a little the fortunes of Fergus McKay.

It will be remembered that the vigorous Highlander, after overturning
the Indian canoe and running his own canoe on shore, was seized by the
neck, while in the act of reaching forward to grasp his gun, and
captured.

Now, Fergus was of an unusually knowing and wily nature. He possessed
what some would call more than his share of readiness in action and
sagacity in counsel, though his ordinary reticence and sluggishness of
manner concealed those qualities to some extent.

Being endued, also, with more than the average allowance of that bodily
strength for which his countrymen are famous, his first impulse was to
exert his powers and show fight, but he had been taken suddenly at a
disadvantage and thrown on his back into the bottom of the canoe, and at
least three pair of very muscular hands grasped h