456 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
a little stream which empties into the larger, I turned into it 
to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a century’s growth 
met overhead, and formed an archway radiant with frost- 
work, All was dark within; but I was young and fearless, 
and, as I peered into an unbroken forest, that reared itself 
on the borders of the stream, I laughed with very joyous- 
ness; my wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I 
stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, 
until all was hushed. Suddenly a sound arose—it seemed to 
me to come from beneath the ice; it sounded low and tremu- 
lous at first, until it ended in one wild yell. I was appalled. 
Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it 
more than mortal; so fierce, and amidst such an unbroken 
solitude, it seemed as though a fiend had blown a blast from 
an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on shore 
crack as though from the tread of some brute animal, and 
the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that 
made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend 
with things earthly, and not of spiritual nature—my energies 
returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape. 
.. The moon shone through the opening at the mouth of the 
creek by which I had entered the forest, and considering this 
the best means of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow. 
"Twas hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could 
scarcely excel my desperate flight ; yet, as I turned my head 
to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through 
the underbrush at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. 
By this great speed, and the short yells which they 
occasionally gave, I knew at: once that. these were the much 
dreaded gray wolves. 
I had never met with these animals, but from the. aoa 
tion given of them, I had but little pleasure in making their 
acquaintance. Their untameable fierceness, and the untiring 
strength which seems part of their nature, render them 
objects of dread to every benighted traveller. 
