A RESCUED PARTY 241

“We heard firing at last,” the captain went on. “First
two shots faintly, then two nearer, and a minute later two
others. We knew then that you must be engaged with
wolves, and we were running as hard as we could in the
direction of the shots when we heard a number fired close
together. Of course we could make nothing of it, but on
we ran. Then there was another outbreak of firing, this
time quite close. A moment later we caught sight of a
confused mass. There was a fire and a sledge with two
horses, and a man standing up in it shooting; and we
could see a desperate fight going on with the wolves in
front, so Alexander and Hugo fired their pieces into the
thick of them. We set up a yell and went at them with
our axes, yet I did not feel by any means sure that they
would not be too many for us. But what on earth does
it all mean? and how is it that you have lived through the
night? We had no expectation of finding you alive.
However, that fire tells its own tale, as though nothing
less than burning up a big tree would content you.”

“T will tell you all presently. It is too long a story now.
Let us help these travellers to go their way before the wolves
rally again.”

“They will not do that,” the captain said confidently;
“af it was night they might hang about the neighbourhood,
but they are cowardly beasts in the daytime, and easily
scared. ‘They are still going away at their best pace, I will
be bound.”

While Charlie was speaking to Ladislas one of the trav-
ellers had been talking to Stanislas, who in answer to his
question had informed him that he was in Charlie’s service,
and that the latter was an English gentleman, who had from
a variety of circumstances, especially the suspicion with
which all strangers were regarded, been unable to travel
through the country, and had therefore been passing the
winter hunting with this company of disbanded soldiers