WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 287 



" By their tongues, I should say not more than three or four 

 probably an old bitch-wolf and a brace of young ones." 



Annette, however, who, head and shoulders out of window, 

 was supervising the examination of the ground and wall, was of a 

 different opinion. " How can he know their number when, the 

 more the wolves howled, the louder he snored in answer ? I'll 

 be sworn there were a dozen at least knocking hard for admission 

 at this window." 



That, of course, was an exaggerated estimate, suggested by 

 the fear and imagination of the woman, as there had been no 

 snow previously, nor weather bitter enough to cause the wolves 

 to pack for mutual help and more aggressive depredation. But 

 Shafto, pretending to accept Annette's view of the number, shook 

 his 1 head ominously, and said, with a solemn air, " Then, I fear 

 me, that poor fellow and his ponies made a grand meal for the 

 brutes when they found themselves baulked by our walls." 



" God forbid ! " said the woman, now stung to the quick at 

 the recollection of the merciless manner in which she and her 

 husband had treated the man. "If indeed such a fate has 

 befallen him, the Loup-garou will terrify my thoughts, awake or 

 asleep, to my dying day." 



About an hour afterwards Owen Mawr was despatched to 

 Gourin, with instructions to inquire if the charcoal-burner had 

 arrived safely at that town, and if, as Shafto himself much 

 doubted, the ponies had been equally fortunate; for, if the 

 wolves had attacked them, the man would have been utterly 

 powerless to protect all his four little beasts with a box of 

 lucifer matches only, although, by standing over one, he might 

 possibly save its life from the cowardly brutes. Not a scrap of 

 intelligence, however, could Owen gain of the man and his ponies 

 at Gourin ; neither he nor they had been seen in the town since 

 they had quitted it on the previous day ; nor could any tidings 

 be gleaned from the gendarmes, who were at once started in 



