FRONTIER TYPES 



87 



SKINNER &-OUNI\i. 





A FIGHT IN THE STREET. 



speck against the snow, coming along on his trail. His companion was 

 dogging his footsteps. Immediately he followed his own trail back a 

 little and lay in ambush. At dusk his companion came stealthily up, 

 rifle in hand, peering cautiously ahead, his drawn face showing the 

 starved, eager ferocity of a wild beast, and the man he was hunting shot 

 him down exactly as if he had been one. Leaving the body where it fell, 

 the wanderer continued his journey, the dog staggering painfully behind 

 him. The next evening he baked his last cake and divided it with the 

 dog. In the morning, with his belt drawn still tighter round his skeleton 

 body, he once more set out, with apparently only a few hours of dull misery 

 between him and death. At noon he crossed the track of a huge timber- 

 wolf; instantly the dog gave tongue, and, rallying its strength, ran along 

 the trail. The man struggled after. At last his strength gave out and he 

 sat down to die; but while sitting still, slowly stiffening with the cold, he 

 heard the dog baying in the woods. Shaking off his mortal numbness, 

 he crawled towards the sound, and found the wolf over the body of a deer 

 that he had just killed, and keeping the dog from it. At the approach of 

 the new assailant the wolf sullenly drew off, and man and dotr tore the raw 

 deer-flesh with hideous eagerness. It made them very sick for the next 



