第28章

AN ADVENTURE WITH WOLVES.

Some forty years ago I passed the winter in the wilderness of northern Maine.I was passionately fond of skating, and the numerous lakes and rivers, frozen by the intense cold, offered an ample field to the lover of this pastime.

Sometimes my skating excursions were made by moonlight; and it was on such an occasion that I met with an adventure which even now I cannot recall without a thrill of horror.

I had left our cabin one evening just before dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up the Kennebec, which glided directly before the door.The night was beautifully clear with the light of the full moon and millions of stars.Light also came glinting from ice and snow-wreath and incrusted branches, as the eye followed for miles the broad gleam of the river, that like a jeweled zone swept between the mighty forests that bordered its banks.

And yet all was still.The cold seemed to have frozen tree, air, water, and every living thing.Even the ringing of my skates echoed back from the hill with a startling clearness; and the crackle of the ice, as I passed over it in my course, seemed to follow the tide of the river with lightning speed.

I had gone up the river nearly two miles, when, coming to a little stream which flows into the larger, I turned into it to explore its course.Fir and hemlock of a century's growth met overhead, and formed an archway radiant with frost-work.All was dark within; but I was young and fearless, and I laughed and shouted with excitement and joy.

My wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echoes until all was hushed.Suddenly a sound arose,--it seemed to come from beneath the ice.It was low and tremulous at first, but it ended in one long wild howl.

I was appalled.Never before had such a sound met my ears.Presently I heard the brushwood on shore crash as though from the tread of someanimal.The blood rushed to my forehead; my energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape.

The moon shone through the opening at the mouth of the creek by which I had entered the forest; and, considering this the best way of escape, I darted toward it like an arrow.It was hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could scarcely have excelled me in flight; yet, as I turned my eyes to the shore, I could see several dark objects dashing through the brushwood at a pace nearly double in speed to my own.By their great speed, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much-dreaded gray wolves.

The bushes that skirted the shore now seemed to rush past with the velocity of lightning, as I dashed on in my flight to pass the narrow opening.The outlet was nearly gained; a few seconds more, and I would be comparatively safe.But in a moment my pursuers appeared on the bank above me, which here rose to the height of ten or twelve feet.There was no time for thought; I bent my head, and dashed wildly forward.The wolves sprang, but, miscalculating my speed, they fell behind, as I glided out upon the river!