The poor boy on reaching the shore in safety, instantly fainted, while
his miserable father was sufficiently sobered by the perils he had
passed through. The canoe was dashed to pieces on the rocks ere it
reached its final leap.

A SKATER CHASED BY A WOLF.

A thrilling incident in American country life is vividly sketched in
"Evenings at Donaldson Manor." In the winter of 1844, the relater went
out one evening to skate, on the Kennebec, in Maine, by moonlight, and,
having ascended that river nearly two miles, turned into a little stream
to explore its course.

"Fir and hemlock of a century's growth," he says, "met overhead and
formed an archway, radiant with frostwork. All was dark within; but I
was young and fearless; and, as I peered into an unbroken forest that
reared itself on the borders of the stream, I laughed with very
joyousness; my wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood
listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was
hushed. Suddenly a sound arose--it seemed to me to come from beneath the
ice; it sounded low and tremulous at first, until it ended in a low,
wild yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I
thought it more than mortal; so fierce, and amid such an unbroken
solitude, it seemed as though from the tread of some brute animal, and
the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin
burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend with things earthly and
not spiritual; my energies returned, and I looked around me for some
means of escape. As I turned my head to the shore, I could see two dark
objects dashing through the underbrush, at a pace nearly double in speed
to my own. By this rapidity, and the short yells they occasionally gave,
I knew at once that these were the much-dreaded gray wolf.

"I had never met with these animals, but, from the description given of
them, I had very little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their
untamable fierceness, and the enduring strength, which seems part of
their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveler.

"There was no time for thought; so I bent my head and dashed madly
forward. Nature turned me toward home. The light flakes of snow spun
from the iron skates, and I was some distance from my pursuers, when
their fierce howl told me I was their fugitive. I did not look back; I
did not feel afraid, or sorry, or even glad; one thought of home, the
bright