rasping yelp, made a sidelong plunge, as if diving off a bank into the
water, and, striking on the side of his head, rolled over on his back,
with his legs vaguely kicking at the moon, and as powerless to do harm
as a log of wood.

Brief as was the halt, it had given the leading brutes of the main
body time to come up. They were fearfully near, when the scent of
blood and the sight of their fallen comrade suggested to the foremost
that a meal was at their disposal. They flew at the huge fellow and
rended him to shreds and fragments in a twinkling.

The only way of escape was still in front, and, with the utmost
energy, power, and skill at his command, Monteith Sterry darted ahead.
His crouching body, the head well in advance, somewhat after the
manner of a racing bicyclist on the home-stretch, his compressed lips,
his flashing eyes, with every muscle tense, were proof that he knew it
had now become a struggle of life and death.

If he allowed one of those wolves to approach nigh enough to leap upon
him, he would be borne to the earth like a flash and share the fate
of the victim of his pistol. They were near, for he could hear that
multitudinous pattering on the ice, when the din of their cries
permitted it, and they were running fast.

But, he reasoned, if they were so close to him they must be still
closer to the brother and sister, whose peril, therefore, was
correspondingly greater. He looked around. He was farther from the
horde than he supposed, but Fred and Jennie were not directly behind
him, as he had thought.