A JUMP FOE LIFE. 183 



again discover me approaching, so I dismounted and walked, 

 leading my horse, not only to rest him but to warm myself, 

 for since the sun had set the temperatnre had become exces- 

 sively cold. 



When I arrived at the thicket into which the wolf had 

 dropped, I made a cast round and struck his trail, leaving it 

 in a direction leading diagonally down the river, remounted, 

 and followed ; but the nature of the ground prevented my 

 riding with much rapidity. By-and-by I caught a ghostly 

 glimpse of the wolf in the moonlight as he scrambled up the 

 right bank of the river and disappeared. Undoubtedly he 

 had also seen" me, and finding I was not to be shaken off, 

 his heart failed him, for he uttered a prolonged and mournful 

 howl. Where the wolf had scrambled up the bluff of the 

 creek's bottom it was too steep to follow. I was again 

 thrown out, and compelled to lose more time, seeking for 

 a place where I could get up from out of the bottom and on 

 the plain again. 



Though the course the wolf had run had been veiy 

 zig-zag, and made many sharp turns and doubles, it had 

 in the main been a big semicircle ; and I was very glad to 

 find, when I got on it again, that it bore more and more to 

 the right, and so was taking me almost in the direction of 

 camp. To confess the truth, I and my horse were begin- 

 ning to fag. But I was encouraged by the signs of distress 

 the wolf commenced to show by often stopping and lying 

 down, and began to hope I should run into him every 

 minute ; he, however, still managed to keep ahead, and 

 at last the moon went down and tracking became im- 

 possible. 



