their mouths!  I wish I’d thought of that before I rammed down the wadding.  I haven’t got my screw along, or I might draw out the load again.  I’ll not shoot at all.  I’ll just watch till somebody comes and scares them away.  Ugh! you black rascal! what’re you staring up here for?” he continued, looking down at the largest wolf, which was standing upright against the tree, and tearing the bark away furiously with his long teeth.  The number of Joe’s enemies continued to increase.  There were now perhaps twenty under the tree.  And still the firing on the island was kept up, though not so incessantly as at first, which inspired Joe with a hope that they would either kill all the wolves in their vicinity very soon or force them to join his flock under the tree, when the men would surely come to his relief.  Sneak’s fire abated somewhat, likewise, and Joe’s reliance upon having their aid in a very short time caused his fears to subside in a great measure.

“If you’re so crazy after asafoetida,” said he, looking down at the fiercely staring animals again, “I’ll give you a taste, just to see what you’ll do.”  He took a small portion of the gum which he had retained, and rubbed it over a piece of paper that he found in his pocket.  He then dropped the paper in their midst.  They sprang upon it simultaneously, and in an instant it vanished, Joe knew not whither.  “Hang me, if I couldn’t pepper a half-dozen at a shot when they all rush up together so close, if I wasn’t afraid of being kicked down.  I’ll be teetotally smashed if I don’t fix and try it, any how!” said he, pulling out a strong leather string from his pocket, one end of which he attached firmly to a small limb of the tree, and the other he tied as tightly round the wrist of his left arm.  He then pulled out his bandanna, and likewise made his musket fast to a bough.  “Now, my snapping beauties,” he continued, “I’m mistaken if I don’t give you a dose of blue pills that’ll do your business in short order.”  Saying this, he tore off another piece of paper, and rubbing on the gum, dropped it down as near as possible to the spot where he wished the wolves to cluster together.  No sooner did it fall than the whole gang sprang upon it, and he fired with precision in their midst.  Joe did not look to see what execution was done.  He was dangling in the air and whirling round and round at a rapid rate, like a malefactor suspended from the gallows, with the exception that his neck did not suffer, and he cried out most lustily for assistance.  When the cloud of smoke that enveloped him cleared away a little, and he became better acquainted with his critical situation, his yells increased in rapidity and violence.  His condition was truly perilous.  The small bough to which he had attached himself had not sufficient strength to bear him up when his feet slipped from the larger one below, and it was now bent down a considerable distance, and that too in a divergent direction from his recent foothold, and unfortunately there was no limb of the