THE DARKIE FIDDLER. 451 
paused for a moment on the edge of the clearing with tails 
between their legs, looking after him; but the sight of his 
flying form renewed at once their savage instincts, and with 
a loud burst of yells, they pursued him at full speed. Alas 
for the unlucky fiddler, had he been caught now, it would 
have been all up with him, even had his fiddle continued to 
shriek more unearthly shrieks than that of Paganini ever 
gave forth. He had broken the spell by running, for had 
they caught him now, they would never have paused to 
listen, had he been an Orpheus in reality. 
Luckily the old man reached the hut just as they were at 
his heels, and slamming the rickety door behind him, he had 
time to climb out on to the roof, where he was comparativoly 
out of danger. I say comparatively, for the perch he now 
occupied, was too rickety to make it any thing rather than 
desirable, except by contrast with the immediate condition 
from which he had escaped. 
The wolves were now furious, and thronging the intcrior 
of the hut, leaped up at him with wild yells of gnashing 
rage. The poor old sinner was horribly frightened, and 
it required the utmost activity of motion to keep his legs 
from being snapped by them. Wild with the agonized 
terror as he was, pgor old Dick had managed to cling to his 
fiddle through it all, and remembering that it had saved him 
in the woods, he now, with the sheer energy of desperation, 
drew his bow shrieking across the strings, with a sound that 
rose high above all their deafening yells, while, with his feet 
kicking out into the air, he endeavored to avoid their steel-like 
fangs. An instant silence followed this sudden outburst, and 
Dick continued to produce such frightful spasms of sound as 
his hysterical condition conceived. 
This outbreak kept the wolves quiet for 2 moment or two, 
but old Dick soon learned to his increased horror that even 
wolves are too fastidious to stand bad fiddling, for they com- 
