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.

4. 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 the ice beneath my feet. It was low and tremulous at first, but it ended in one long, wild howl. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. Presently I heard the brushwood on shore crash as though from the tread of some animal. The blood rushed to my forehead; but I looked around me for some means of escape. The moon shone through the opening at the mouth of the creek by which I had entered the forest; and, considering this the best way of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow.

5. The opening was hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could scarcely have excelled me in flight; yet, as I turned my eyes to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the brushwood at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. By their great speed, and the short yelps which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much dreaded gray wolves. I had never met with these ferocious animals; but from the description given of them, I felt little pleasure at making their acquaintance. Their untamable fierceness and untiring strength render them objects of dread to every benighted traveler.

6. The bushes that skirted the shore now seemed to rush past with the velocity of lightning, as I dashed on in my flight to pass the narrow opening. The outlet was nearly gained; a few seconds more, and I would be comparatively

safe. But in a moment my pursuers appeared on the bank. above me, which here rose to the height of ten or twelve. feet. There was no time for thought. I bent my head, and dashed wildly forward. The wolves sprang; but, miscalculating my speed, fell behind, while their intended prey glided out upon the river.

7. I turned towards home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce growl told me I was still their fugitive. I did not look back, nor feel afraid. I thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return; and then all the energies of body and mind were exerted for escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days that I had spent on my good skates, never thinking that they would thus prove my only means of safety in such imminent peril.

8. Every half minute a furious yelp from my fierce attendants made me but too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer and nearer they came. I heard their feet pattering on the ice; I even felt their very breath, and heard their ferocious snuffing. Every nerve and muscle in my frame was stretched to the utmost tension. The trees along the shore seemed to dance in an uncertain light, my brain turned with my own breathless speed, my pursuers hissed forth their breath with a sound truly horrible, when all at once an involuntary motion on my part turned me out of my course.

9. The wolves close behind, unable to stop, and as unable to turn on smooth ice, slipped and fell, still going on far ahead. Their tongues were lolling out-their white tusks. were gleaming from their bloody mouths their dark shaggy breasts were fleeced with foam; and as they passed

me their eyes glared, and they howled with fury. The thought flashed on my mind that by this means I could avoid them, — namely, by turning aside whenever they came too near; for, by the formation of their feet, they are unable to run on ice except in a straight line.

10. I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly toward me. The race was renewed for many yards up the stream; they were almost close on my back, when I glided round and dashed directly past them. A fierce yell greeted this evolution; and the wolves, slipping on their haunches, again slid onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the baffled animals becoming more and more excited.

11. Once, by delaying my turning too long, my sanguinary antagonists came so near that they threw their white. foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick, or had my foot been caught in a fissure, the story I am now telling would never have been told. I thought all the chances over. I thought how long it would be before I died, and then of the search for my body. How fast man's mind traces out all the dread colors of death's picture, only those who have been near the grim original can tell.

But I soon came opposite the house, and my hounds (I knew their deep voices), roused by the noise, bayed furiously from their kennels. I heard their chains rattle. How I wished they would break them! Then I should'

have had protectors to match the fiercest denizens of the forest.

12. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in their mad career, and, after a few moments, turned and fled. I watched them until their forms disappeared over a neighboring hill; then, taking off my skates, I wended my way to the house with feelings which may be better imagined than described. But even yet, I never see a broad sheet of ice by moonlight without thinking of that snuffing breath, and those ferocious beasts that followed me so closely down that frozen river.

46. THE COYOTE.

agʼgra-vāt-ed, made worse.

al'le-gor-y, type, representative.

coy-ote', prairie-wolf.

fur'tive, looking by stealth.
in-censed', enraged.

wake, track.

1. THE coyote of the farther deserts is a long, slim, sick, and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever hangs down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth.

2. He has a general slinking expression all over. The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of want. He is always hungry; he is always poor, out of luck, and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him. He is so spiritless. and cowardly that, even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologizing for it. And he is so homely so scrawny, and ribby, and coarsehaired, and pitiful!

3. When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you from time to time till he is about out of easy pistol-range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate survey of you. He will trot fifty yards, and stop again; another fifty, and stop again; and, finally, the gray of his gliding body blends with the gray of the sage-brush, and he disappears.