“But, Fred, she is not without hope; she can skate faster than either of us, and I am sure none of them was in front of her on the creek or she would not have made the turn she did.”

“If the creek extends for several miles, that is with enough width to give her room, she will outspeed them; but how is she to get back?”

“What need that she should?  When they are thrown behind she can take off her skates and continue homeward through the woods, or she may find her way back to the river and rejoin us.”

“God grant that you are right; but some of the wolves may appear in front of her, and then—­”

“Don’t speak of it!  We would have heard their cries if any of them had overtaken her.”

No situation could be more trying than that of the two youths, who felt that every rod toward home took them that distance farther from the beloved one whose fate was involved in awful uncertainty.

“This won’t do,” added Monteith, after they had skated some distance farther; “we are now so far from the animals that they cannot trouble us again; we are deserting her in the most cowardly manner.”

“But what shall we do?  What can we do?”

“You know something of this part of the country; let’s take off our skates and cut across the creek; she may have taken refuge in the limb of a tree and is awaiting us.”

“Isn’t some one coming up stream?” asked Fred, peering forward, where the straight stretch was so extensive that the vision permitted them to see unusually far.

“It may be another wolf.”

“No; it is a person.  Perhaps Quance has been drawn from his home by the racket.  He is a great hunter.  I hope it is he, for he can give us help in hunting for Jennie—­”

Monteith suddenly gripped the arm of his friend.

“It is not a man!  It is a woman!”

“Who can it be?  Not Jennie, surely—­”

“Hurry along!  You are no skaters at all!”

It was she!  That was her voice, and it was her slight, girlish figure skimming like a swallow toward them.

Within the following minute Fred Whitney clasped his beloved sister in his arms, both shedding tears of joy and gratitude.

Jennie had had a marvellous experience, indeed.  Controlled by an intuition or instinct which often surpasses reason, she was led to dart aside into the smaller stream at the critical moment when the fierce wolves were so near that escape seemed impossible.  She had fallen slightly to the rear, and a single terrified glance showed her a beast in the act of leaping at her.  Her dart to the left was only the effort to elude him for that instant, and she was not aware of the mouth of the creek until she had entered it.  Then, seeing that it was altogether too late to rejoin her brother, she had no course left but to continue the flight which, until then, she had not intended.

The words which she called to Fred, that were not understood by him, were to the effect that she would try to rejoin him farther down the stream, with whose many turnings she was more familiar than he.