Our remaining captive struggled to get free, but in a moment D'ri
had brained him with an axe. He and my father reset our traps and
hauled the dead wolves into the firelight. There they began to
skin them, for the bounty was ten dollars for each in the new
towns--a sum that made our adventure profitable. I built fires on
the farther side of the sheep, and, as they brightened, I could
see, here and there, the gleaming eyes of a wolf in the darkness.
I was up all night heaping wood upon the fires, while D'ri and my
father skinned the wolves and dressed the deer. I remember, as
they worked, D'ri calmed himself with the low-sung, familiar music
of:--

Li too rul I oorul I oorul I ay.

They had just finished when the cock crew.

"Holler, ye gol-dum little cuss!" D'ri shouted as he went over to
him. "Can't no snookin' wolf crack our bones fer _us_. Peeled
'em--thet 's what we done tew 'em! Tuk 'n' knocked 'em head over
heels. Judas Priest! He can peck a man's finger some, can't he?"

The light was coming, and he went off to the spring for water,
while I brought the spider and pots. The great, green-roofed
temple of the woods, that had so lately rung with the howl of
wolves, began to fill with far wandering echoes of sweet song.

"They was a big cat over there by the spring las' night," said
D'ri, as we all sat down to breakfast. "Tracks bigger 'n a
griddle! Smelt the mutton, mos' likely."