; but in truth, they are harmless as
the deer, quite as wild and shy, and full as cowardly in the presence
of a man. They will fly as frightened from his approach, unless,
possibly, in the intense cold and desolation of winter, when driven
together and rendered desperate by hunger, they might be emboldened by
starvation to attack a man, but even this is among the apocryphal
legends of the wilderness.

"Hearing them wolves howlin'," said Hank Martin, as we sat in the
evening around our camp fire, "reminds me of a story Mark Shuff tells
of his experience with the critters; but mind, I don't pretend to
swear to its truth, for I don't claim to know anything about the facts
myself. I'll tell it as Mark told it to me, and if it turns out to be
too tough a yarn to take down whole, don't lay it to me. You know Mark
Shuff," said he, appealing to me, "and you may believe such parts of
it as you may be able to swallow, and the rest may be divided up, as
the Doctor said the other day, among the company."

"Go ahead," said the Doctor, "I'll take a quarter as my share of the
story, and you may cut it off of either end, or carve it out of the
middle. I'll take a quarter, tough or tender."

"You may set down a quarter to my account," said Smith, "and Spalding
shall take another." "Very well, then," said Martin, "I'll believe a
quarter of it myself, and so the case is made up, as the judge
would say."

"Well," repeated Martin, "you know MARE Shuff?" "Of course I know Mark
Shuff; and who, that has visited these lakes and woods don't know him?
He is a stalwart man, six feet in his stockings, strong, healthy, and
enduring as iron, I have had him as a boatman and guide about Tupper's
Lake, and the regions beyond it, more than once. He works at lumbering
in the winter, and if there is one among the hundreds, I had almost
said thousands, who make war, in the snowy season of the year, upon
the old pines of the Rackett woods, who can swing an axe more
effectually than Mark Shuff, his light is under a bushel--his fame
obscured. Mark works hard for four or five months, and lays around
loose the balance of the year. In the summer, he holds a cost as a
thing of ornament rather than use, and boots or shoes as luxuries, not
to be reckoned as among the necessaries of life. His hat, as a general
thing, is of straw, and minus a little more than half the brim. He
would be out of place, and out of uniform, as well as out of temper
with himself, if he