FRIDAY AND THE WOLF. 845

bade us be easy, we should soon be past it all. We found, indeed,
that we began to descend every day, and to come more north than
before; and so, depending upon our guide, we went on.

It was about two hours before night, when, our guide being
something before us and not just in sight, out rushed three mon-
strous wolves, and after them a bear, out of a hollow way adjoining
to a thick wood. Two of the wolves flew upon the guide; and
had he been half a mile before us he had been devoured indeed
before we could have helped him. One of them fastened upon his
horse ; and the other attacked. the man with.such violence that he
had not time or not presence of mind enough to draw his pistol,
but hallooed and cried out to us most lustily. My man Friday
being next to me, I bade him ride up and see what was the matter.
As soon as Friday came in sight of the man, he hallooed as loud
as the other, ‘‘Oh master! oh master!” but, like a bold fellow,
rode directly up to the poor man, and with his pistol shot the wolf
that attacked him into the head.

It was happy for the poor man that it was my man Friday; for
he having been used to that kind of creature in his country, had no
fear upon him, but went close up to him, and shot him as above:
whereas any of us would have fired at a further distance, and have
perhaps either missed the wolf or endangered shooting the man.

But it was enough to have terrified a bolder man than I, and
indeed it alarmed all our company, when with the noise of Friday’s
pistol we heard on both sides the dismallest howling of wolves,
and the noise redoubled by the echo of the mountains, that it was
to us as if there had been a prodigious multitude of them: and
perhaps indeed there was not such a few as that we had no cause
of apprehensions.

However, as Friday had killed this wolf, the other that had
fastened upon the horse left him immediately, and fled; having
happily fastened upon his head, where the bosses of the bridle had
stuck in his teeth, so that he had not done him much hurt. The
man, indeed, was most hurt; for the raging creature had bit him
twice, once on the arm, and the other time a little above his
knee; and he was just as it were tumbling down by the disorder
of his horse, when Friday came up and shot the wolf.