The moon shone through the opening
at the mouth of the creek by which I had entered the forest, and
considering this the best channel of escape, I darted towards it like an
arrow. 'Twas scarcely a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could
hardly excel my desperate flight; yet, as I turned my head to the shore,
I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace
nearly double in speed to my own. By this rapidity, and the short yells
which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much
dreaded gray wolf.
I had never met with these animals, but from the description given of
them I had very little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their
untameable fierceness, and the untiring strength which seems part of
their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveller.
"With their long gallop, which can tire
The deer-hound's haste, the hunter's fire,"
they pursue their prey--never straying from the track of their
victim--and as the wearied hunter thinks he has at last outstripped
them, he finds that they but waited for the evening to seize their prey,
and falls a prize to the tireless pursuers.
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