12 WOLF-HUNTING. 



moment. I could hear my heart beat as the dry wood cracked 

 under the tread of the brute, now within twenty yards of my 

 horse's head ; but whether he caught a glimpse of me, or merely 

 from habit avoided the open space, he turned abruptly to the left, 

 and, at that instant, the balle-mariee of a peasant crashed through 

 both shoulders, and he rolled over like a rabbit head-foremost 

 into the scrub. 



Then there was a grand " mort " sounded by the horns, in 

 which the hounds, after worrying the wolf, joined in wild strain 

 their paeans of triumph over the fallen foe. The brute was a 

 full-grown one ; and nothing surprised me more than the dis- 

 proportion between him and the biggest hound in point of bone 

 and power ; the arm just below the elbow was nearly double the 

 size of the other, while his canine teeth, when extracted, measured 

 more than two inches in length, and were so strong and keen that 

 a horse would stand but a poor chance when seized in the throat 

 by such weapons. 



