260 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



times taking a drink, talking, conjuring up all the old stories of 

 wolves that we had ever heard or read of, good bad and indifferent, 

 they were all repeated, — wolf had no mercy shown him that night. 

 If he could have understood our language I am sure he would 

 have howled louder in anger at the character we gave him than 

 ever he did in hunger or melancholy. 



Mike's opinion of him was that he was a  dratted mean cuss, 

 feered to hunt deer alone and fodderin' on his own young ones 

 when he can't ketch nothin' else." 



The negro boys entertained the belief that the luminous appear- 

 ance from their eyes at night arose from their feasting on the slain 

 in battle, and a suspicion that they sometimes visited graveyards 

 for other purposes than pensive meditations. 



The Doctor told how that the power of a wolf's jaw was greater 

 than that of any animal, that it had a power of — I have for- 

 gotten how many hundred pounds — and something about his facial 

 muscles that no one understood. 



I told the following story of an adventure. It don't seem now 

 half as natural as when the wolves were howling an accompani- 

 ment, but it is true, nevertheless. 



THE WOLF CHASE. 



" During the winter of 1834, being engaged in running a line in 

 the Aroostook country in the northern part of Maine, I had much 

 leisure to devote to wild sports. To none of these was I more 

 passionately addicted than to skating. The deep and sequestered 

 lakes of this State, frozen by the intense cold of the northern 

 winter, present a wide field to the lovers of this pastime. Often 

 would I bind on my skates, and glide away up the glittering river, 

 and wind each mazy streamlet that flowed beneath its fetters on 

 toward the parent ocean, forgetting all the while time and distance 

 in the luxurious sense of the gliding motion, thinking of nothing 

 in the easy flight, but rather dreaming as I looked through the 

 transparent ice at the long weeds and cresses that nodded in the 

 current beneath and seemed wrestling with the waves to let them 

 go ; or I would follow on the track of some fox or otter, and run 



