Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School Part 28

n.o.body spoke for some time. Those who were not too tired were busy thinking.

What was to be done? Eight young people, on a bitter cold winter afternoon, shut up in a hut in the middle of a forest while five half-starved wolves besieged the door.

Presently Tom Gray began to look about him.

There was a fireplace in the hut, which, by great good luck, contained the remains of a large backlog. More fuel was stacked in the corner, chiefly brushwood and sticks. He made a fire at once and the others gathered around the blaze, for they felt the penetrating chill now, after their rapid and exhausting flight through the forest.

"Here's a rifle," exclaimed Grace, who was also exploring, while Tom kindled the fire.

"Good!" cried Tom. "Let's see it. It may be our salvation."

He seized the gun and examined the barrel, but, alas, there was only one shot left in it. They searched the hut for more cartridges, but not one could they find.

In the meantime the wolves, which might have been taken for large collie dogs at a little distance, were trotting around the house, leaping against the door and windows and occasionally giving a blood-curdling howl.

"Suppose you feed me to them?" groaned Hippy. "You could get almost to Oakdale before they finished me."

The suggestion seemed to break the apprehensive silence that had settled down upon them, and they burst out laughing, one and all; even Anne, who was lying on a bearskin in front of the fire.

"I suppose the beasts were driven down from the hills by hunger, and when they smelled the fat bacon frying, the woods couldn't hold them,"

observed David. "I have always heard that a hungry wolf could smell something to eat on another planet."

"Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Nora. "If we leave this charming abode of Jean's, we shall be eaten alive, and if we stay in it we shall starve."

"You won't starve for a while yet, child. You have only just eaten. You remind me of the story of the people who were locked up in a vault in a cemetery. They divided the candle into notches and decided to eat a notch apiece every day. They had just finished the last notch, and were expecting to die at any moment of starvation, when somebody unlocked the door, and how long do you suppose they had been shut up!"

"Several days, I suppose," answered Nora, "since they appeared to have eaten several notches."

"Not at all," replied David. "Only three hours."

"I'd rather be in a vault, with the dead, than out here," observed Hippy.

"Are we such poor company as all that, Fatty!" laughed Reddy.

"I've made a great find," announced Tom Gray in the midst of their chatter. He was standing on a bench examining something on a shelf suspended from the ceiling.

"What?" demanded the others in great excitement.

"A pair of snowshoes," he answered.

There was a disappointed silence.

"Well, don't all speak at once," said Tom at last. "Don't you agree with me that it's a great find?"

"We are sorry we can't enthuse," answered David, "but we fail to see how snow shoes can help us out of our present predicament."

"n.o.body here knows how to use them," continued Reddy, "and even if he did, he couldn't out-run a pack of wolves."

"I know how to use them," exclaimed Tom. "I learned it in Canada a few winters ago, but I will admit I couldn't beat the wolves in a race.

However, the shoes may come in handy yet."

Just then one of the wolves threw his body against the door and the small cabin shook with the force of the blow.

"By Jove!" exclaimed David, "I thought they had us then. Another blow like that and the old latch might give way."

They looked about them for something to place against the door, but there was not a stick of furniture in the room. Even the bed, in one corner, was made of pine boughs and skins.

"I wonder how there happens to be only five wolves," said Anne. "I thought they went about in large packs."

"They are probably mama and papa and the whole family," replied Hippy.

"The smallest, friskiest ones, I think, are young ladies, by the way they switched along behind the others and hung back kind of shy-like."

"Now, Hippy Wingate, don't tell us such a romance as that," warned Grace, "when you were so winded you could hardly look in front of you, much less behind you."

At that moment there was another crash against the door while two gray paws and the tip of a pointed muzzle could be seen on one of the window sills.

"It's almost three o'clock," said Tom Gray, looking at his watch. "I think we'll have to do something, or we shall be penned here all night.

Now, what shall it be? Suppose we have a friendly council and consider."

"All right," said David; "the meeting is open for suggestions. What do you advise, Anne?"

Anne smiled thoughtfully.

"I have no advice to offer," she said, "unless you shoot one of the wolves and let the others eat him up. Perhaps that would take the edge off their appet.i.tes."

"No, that would only serve as an appetizer," answered David. "After they had eaten one member of the family they would be still hungrier for another."

"And yet that isn't a half bad idea," said Tom, "and for two reasons.

Did you notice a path which began at the hut and which was evidently Jean's trail? I saw it from the corner of my eye as I ran."

No, the others had not noticed anything of the sort. But who would stop to think of trails with a pack of hungry wolves at his heels?

Tom's training in the woods had taught him to take in such details, and consequently he had noticed it particularly. Moreover, the trail led straight to the left, presumably toward the west.

"Now, this is what I propose to do," he continued, taking down the snowshoes and looking over their straps and fastenings carefully.

"Reddy, who, I hear, is a good shot, must climb up at one of the windows and shoot the first wolf he sees. Eating the dead wolf would probably occupy the attention of his brothers for some ten minutes or so--perhaps longer. While they are busy I shall make off on the snowshoes. With that much of a start, and with plenty of tasty human beings close at hand, I doubt if they even follow me. If they do, why I'll just shin up a tree.

But I believe I can beat them. I'm pretty good on snowshoes."

"Tom Gray, you shan't do it!" cried Grace. "It may mean sure death. How do you know the wolves won't seize you the moment you open the door?

Besides, you don't know the way. Suppose you should get lost?"

"No, no," insisted Tom. "None of these things will happen. I know positively that a hungry wolf will stop chasing a human being and eat up a dead wolf, or a shoe, or a rug, or anything that happens to be thrown to him. I never was surer of anything in my life than that I can get away from here before the beasts know it."

There was a storm of protestation from the others, but Tom Gray finally overruled every objection and they reluctantly consented to let him go.

It was arranged that Reddy should stand on a bench by one of the small windows and attract the attention of the wolves by throwing out a rabbit skin that was nailed to one of the walls. While the beasts were tearing this to pieces he was to shoot one of them. Furthermore, the instant the live wolves had finished devouring the dead one, Reddy was to pitch out another skin, of which there were many about the hut, of foxes, rabbits and other small animals, which the trapper had collected.

This, they agreed, would probably keep the wolves occupied for awhile, until Tom had got a good start down the trail.