Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/293

Rh the pack will stay here. They usually—God knows how—know who is helpless and who is n't. Maybe with the gun, you will be able to save your lives."

"What's the chance of that?"

"You might—with one cartridge—kill one of the devils; and the others—but you know how they devour their own dead. That might break their famine enough so that they'd hold off until I can get back. That's the prize I'm playing for."

"And what if you don't get back?"

He took her hand in one of his, and with the other he caressed, for a single moment, the lovely flesh of her throat. The love he had for her spoke from his eyes,—such speech as no human vision could possibly mistake. Both of them were tingling and breathless with a great, sweet wonder.

"Never let those fangs tear that softness, while you live," he told her gently. "Never let that brave old man on the sled go to his death with the pack tearing at him. Cheat 'em, Snowbird! Beat 'em the last minute, if no other way remains! Show 'em who's boss, after all—of all this forest."

"You mean—?" Her eyes widened.

"I mean that you must only spend one of those three shells in fighting off the wolves.