194 THE HOWL OF THE WOLF. 



mostly bold and bluff, the rocks standing up four or eight feet 

 from the water, or broken and fallen like an ancient wall. 

 Here and there is a long stretch of beautiful sandy beach, 

 on which the tiny waves break with a rippling song, and 

 from which bars go out with a gentle slope into the water. 



We intended to remain here quietly for a few days, taking 

 things easy, rowing, and fishing, and hunting enough for ex- 

 ercise only. There is plenty of deer, and trout, and duck, 

 and partridge here, to be taken with small labor ; there are 

 bears, and wolves, and panthers, in the woods around. But 

 these are fewer and harder to be come at than the other 

 game ^ there is an occasional moose too. We saw the 

 tracks of all these animals hereabouts, and we hoped to get 

 a shot at some or all of them before leaving the woods. 



Eeader, did you ever hear the wolves howl in the old 

 woods of a still night I No ? Then you have not heard all 

 the music of the forest. Some deep-mouuied old forester 

 will open his jaws, and send forth a volume of sound so 

 deep, so loud, so changeful, so Adulating and variable in 

 its character, that, as it rolls along the forest, and comes 

 back in quavering echoes from the mountains, you will 

 almost swear that his single voice is an agglomerate of a 

 thousand, all mixed, and mingled, and rolled up into one. 

 May be, away in the distance, possibly on the other side of 

 the lake, or across a broad valley, another will open his 

 mouth and answer, with a howl as deep, and wild, and vari- 

 able, as the first ; and possibly a third and fourth, one on 

 the right, and another on the left, will join in the chorus, 



