rely
would get to his throat, and that one snap of those saber-sharp teeth
would settle the business for him.

He tried to protect his throat with his left arm as he felt himself
toppling, but could not get it up far enough because the wolf's body and
head interposed.

But he was slashing away with his knife in a frenzy of despair, and,
apparently, was doing some execution, for every time he struck the wolf
let out a little whine of angry pain.

But the wolf had all the best of it now, and as Ted's foot slipped on
some pieces of dry grass he went down with the heavy brute on top of
him.

He could feel it nuzzling at his neck for a toothhold on his throat, but
he kept his chin pressed close to his neck, and, although the wolf
chewed his shirt to pieces, it had found no room to get its teeth into
the boy's flesh.

Ted had no time now to play with the knife. It was not up to him to
conquer the wolf now, but to keep it from taking his life.

Had his revolver been with him he could have ended the fight with a
couple of shots, even if the brute seemed to have a dozen lives, for he
knew that had any one of the knife thrusts which he had planted in the
wolf's body been given to an ordinary specimen of the species the fight
would have been over long since.

The wolf was standing on him, and its weight crushed him.

All he could do in self-defense was to try to get the wolf by the throat
with his bare hands and to choke it.

But the hair about its throat was a thick, almost impenetrable mass of
heavy, thick-growing bristles, on which Ted's hands had apparently no
effect at all.

Ted was in a pretty tight place, and he fully realized it.

The wolf was working hard to get at his windpipe, and the teeth were
getting closer and closer to the vital spot.

Ted's arm, where he tried in vain to get it between himself and the
wolf, was gashed in a dozen places, and the blood was all over him. His
clothes had long since been torn into shreds.

The wolf was getting tired also, as well it might, for, probably it had
been running all night, and had been long without food, so that it was
no discredit to its enormous strength that it was weak and weary.

But neither was Ted as strong as usual, for the ball which had creased
his rib had cost him lots of blood.

In the hearts of both of them, however, there was strength enough, and
it was that which kept them fighting long after both of them were tired
and winded.

The wolf