Page:The Pacific Monthly vol. 14.djvu/110

 sadly altered. Fruin in his eagerness to help his master leaped clean through one of the windows which had been insecurely fastened. Before Boyd could rush to the window to fire and cover the poor collie from attack Fruin was gone under a wild surging pyramid of frantic, clawing and snapping wolves. Boyd fastened up the window and pointing the rifle straight at the mass of grey demons opened steady fire on them. Again and again ho filled the magazine until uneaten wolves lay in heaps around the door and the rest of the band skulked behind the stumps. All that remained of poor Fruin was a small red spot just under the window. Then began the siege. For three days and nights the wolves, whose numbers had been considerably augmented since the battle on the first day, kept close watch over the lonely dwelling. Now and then Boyd picked off one of the brutes, but although the wolves must have been famishing, they did not dare to touch the carcasses by day. At night the dead were dragged away and devoured.

Late in the afternoon of the third day of the siege Boyd suddenly remembered that the Masons had promised to visit him on a certain day.

"What day is it?" he frantically shouted, rushing to his little desk in the upper room. In the excitement and danger of the fighting with the wolves he had forgotten his reckoning of the days. With throbbing pulses he sat down to try to calculate the day. They were to come over the last Wednesday of January. Well, the wolves came Monday morning; they were there all that day; all Tuesday, and now it was late Wednesday, and no sign of the Masons. He sprang up with a cry of joy.

They had decided to wait; they would not be coming until the Sunday; they—

Hist! Hark! What was that? Could it be? No, no, surely not—yet, there again came the sound borne in through the open window of the little towers—tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! The sleigh bells! The Masons' sleigh bells!

The strong soldier felt his veins grow cold and perspiration burst over his brow. He rushed madly downstairs and gazed through the peep hole. Not a living wolf was to be seen. Not a sound of them" from any quarter. Only the two that he had shot that morning near the wood pile. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, came again the silvery sound borne on tlie western wind from the well-worn track leading to the Masons' ranch.

Seizing his cavalry trumpet, Boyd dashed upstairs again and with all the power of his lungs blew the cavalry call "Retire !" If he could hear the sleigh bells surely they could hear that well- known call, which was understood quite as well by the members of Mason's family as by the old sergeant-major himself.

Boyd paused in an agony of anxiety. Maisie might be there ! Alas ! she was almost sure to be there, for she never missed an opportunity to see her affianced. Again and again the soldier blew the call from the upper windows as the darkness settled over the snow-covered prairie and the line of gloomy woods.

Then came the sound of galloping horses, wild cries, shots, howls of wolves. Yes, yes, that crack team of Mason's was giving the brutes a race for it. But could they do it with that distance to traverse? Boyd watched the corner round which the flying sleigh team would appear in a few moments, ready with his rifle to thin out the pursuers. Faster and faster came the hoof beats ; the good steeds were flying for dear life; the pistols and rifles crackled incessantly; wildly howling, the great band of wolves raced beside the galloping horses and tried to leap upon them and into the sleigh.

Like a lightning flash they swept round the corner in full view of the house, and simultaneously Boyd's rifle began spitting death into the masses of the pursuing wolves.

But he had a better plan than that. Opening the huge stove, he seized the ends of two flaming brands and rushed from the house flourishing them wildly above his head. This proved better than all the rifle fire, for the wolves fled from the blazing gumsticks, and kept at a distance while the trembling team was unhitched and crowded into the stable, while the visitors and their host thankfully closed the doors and windows and gathered round the stove to discuss their adventures.

Under the steady and combined fusilade from the rifles and pistols of the party next morning the besiegers melted away into the woods and left the little settlement, apparently forever, for wolves have not been seen in that locality in any considerable numbers since that time.