was a sharper and more eager
yelp, and a shaggy animal came to the edge of the bluff to their left and,
without stopping an instant, plunged down through the drifts toward the
two girls where they stood on the hard-packed snow at the mouth of the
tunnel.

"It is a wolf!" wailed Bobby, and immediately disappeared, head first,
down the hole in the snow drift.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MOUNTAIN HUT

If Bobby had not gone first and had not stuck half way down the hole with
her feet kicking madly just at the mouth of the tunnel, without doubt
Betty Gordon would have been driven by her own fears back into the Pullman
coach.

That shaggy beast diving from the top of the embankment, plunging, yelping
and whining, through the softer drifts of snow, frightened Betty just as
much as it had Bobby Littell. The latter had got away with a flying start,
however, and her writhing body plugged the only means of escape. So Betty
really had to face the approaching terror.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Betty, turning from the approaching beast in despair.
"Hurry! Hurry, Bobby Littell! Do you want me to be eaten up?"

But Bobby had somehow cramped herself in the winding passage through the
snow, and her voice was muffled as she too cried for help.

However, Bobby's demands for assistance were much more likely to bring it
than the cries of the girl outside. The porter heard Bobby first, and
when he opened the door of the coach several men who were near heard the
girl.

"Help! Help! A wolf is eating her!" shrieked the frightened Bobby.

"Ma soul an' body! He must be a-chawin' her legs off!" cried the darkey
and he seized Bobby by the wrists, threw himself backward, and the girl
came out of the tunnel like an aggravating cork out of a bottle.

"What's this?" demanded Mr. Richard Gordon, who happened to be coming back
to the end of the train to look for his niece and her chum.

"Oh, Mr. Gordon!" sputtered Bobby, scrambling up, "it's got her! A wolf!
It's got Betty!"

"A wolf?" repeated Uncle Dick. "I didn't know there were any wolves left
in this part of the country."

Major Pater was with him. Mr. Gordon grabbed the latter's walking stick
and went up that tunnel a good deal quicker than Bobby had come down it.
And when he got to the surface he found his niece, laughing and crying at
once, and almost smothered by the joyful embraces of a big Newfoundland
dog!

"A wolf indeed!" cried Mr. Gordon, but beating off the animal
good-naturedly. "