LITTLE BULL OF THE BARRENS 195 



but in the same moment he was borne down 

 from behind. It seemed to him that a wave 

 of furred, fighting bodies, enormous and 

 irresistible went over him, blotting out 

 everything, even to the desire of life. He 

 was but half conscious of the fangs that 

 sank into his flesh, strangely without pain. 

 He was but half conscious of struggling 

 the mere instinctive struggle of his strong 

 muscles, and already condemned as futile by 

 his aloof and scornful spirit. Then nothing 

 but a knot of great grey wolves, tussling and 

 snarling over something on the snow. 



After everything on the sledge had been 

 torn open and investigated, and scattered 

 over the bloodstained snow, the wolves drew 

 off to a little distance from the fire, which 

 they hated and dreaded. It was a victory 

 which would make that pack for the future 

 tenfold more dangerous. They had dared 

 and vanquished man. But what was one 

 man and a little bag of dry pemmican to 

 such hunger as theirs ? All at once, as if 

 moved simultaneously by one impulse, they 

 gathered, sped up out of the firs into the 

 wind, and swept away through the storm on 

 the trail of the musk-ox herd. 



