270 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



lest he should find himself incapable of 

 it. 



Still, he felt no serious pain. His head 

 ached, to be sure ; and he saw that his left 

 hand was bleeding from a gash at the base 

 of the thumb. That hand still clutched one 

 of the heavy traps which he had been carrying, 

 and it was plainly the trap that had cut 

 him, as if in a frantic effort to escape. 



But where was his rifle ? Cautiously turn- 

 ing his head, he peered around for it; but 

 in vain, for during the fall it had flown far 

 aside into the thickets. As he stared solici- 

 tously, all at once his dazed and sluggish 

 senses sprang to life again with a scorching 

 throb, which left a chill behind it. There, not 

 ten paces away, sitting up on its haunches 

 and eyeing him contemplatively, was a 

 gigantic wolf much bigger, it seemed to 

 him, than any wolf had any right to be. 



Timmins's first instinct was to spring to 

 his feet, with a yell that would give the 

 dreadful stranger to understand that he was a 

 fellow it would not be well to tamper with. 

 But his woodcraft stayed him. He was not 

 by any means sure that he could spring to his 

 feet. Still less was he sure that such an 

 action would properly impress the great 

 wolf, who, for the moment a least, seemed 



