tand and fight!" said Ted to
himself.

Taking advantage of the situation, the pony trotted past Ted, who
scarcely gave it a look, and went on to the corral back of the house.

"So it's going to be a fight," said Ted, advancing cautiously toward the
wolf. "All right, old chap; I'll give you something to think about, if I
do not leave you on the ground entirely incapable of thinking. I wish
I'd gone after my Winchester now. That would have made it too short,
though. Come on, now. All I have is a short knife blade against four
sharp fangs, and you are as brave as the devil himself."

The wolf had not stirred except that his nose was constantly working as
he sniffed the air for Ted.

Ted knew that a wolf that will stand and fight a man by himself is
possessed of more than ordinary courage and brains, and, therefore, he
was on the lookout for the tricks of the fight.

It was well that he was so versed, for before he was quite ready for it
the wolf, without a sound, leaped straight through the air at his
throat. He had just time to dodge aside, and make a vicious swipe with
his knife.

But his blade did not touch the wolf, whose leap carried him several
feet past Ted. Had the wolf succeeded in striking Ted, they would
inevitably have gone down together, and Ted would have had none the best
of it.

But the battle between Ted, the skilled huntsman and wolf exterminator,
and the wily wolf, whose scarred hide told of many battles with bull and
dog, wild cat and man, serpent of the desert, and the eagles of the
mountains, when, in his dire hunger, he had raided their families.

The wolf slid a few feet, then swung himself around like a top and came
at Ted again.

Ted was wiser this time, and dodged just out of the way. At the same
time he gave a vicious side lunge with the knife, and he felt it enter
the wolf's hide. There was a ripping sound, and he knew he had added a
scar to the brute's large collection.

The wolf was now thoroughly angry, and snarled its fury as it wheeled
once more to the attack.

Ted turned to meet it as it rushed toward him, but as he did so he heard
a shout from the ranch house and turned his head in that direction for
an instant.

But that instant was the critical one, and before he could get around
again to face the wolf it was upon him.

Ted felt it strike his chest a mighty blow with its head, and staggered
backward.

It suddenly came to him that if he got under the wolf its teeth su