It took him an hour to traverse the first three miles, and then he came to a stretch of comparatively bare ground leading through his father’s old clearing, and almost to the top of the hill back of Mr. Devins’s house.  He was just urging old Bob into a trot, when a long, clear howl broke upon his ear; then another and another answered from east and south.  He knew what that meant.  It was the cry of the advance-guard of a pack of wolves.

The howling sounded near, and came swiftly nearer, as though the wolves had found his tracks and scented their prey.  Old Bob trembled in every limb, and seemed powerless to move.  Allan realized that he could not, before dark, reach home through the drifts ahead, and the increasing cold of the advancing night would render a refuge in a tree-top probably as deadly as an encounter with the pack.

Presently there came a cry, shriller and sharper than before, and Allan, looking back, saw a great, lean, hungry gray wolf burst from the underbrush into the road, followed by dozens more; and in a moment the road behind him was full of wolves, open-mouthed and in keen chase.  Their yells now seemed notes of exultation, for the leader of the pack—­the strongest, fleetest, hungriest one among them—­was within a dozen yards of Allan, who was now riding faster than ever old Bob had gone before or ever would go again.  Excitement made the lad’s blood boil in his veins, and he determined to show fight.  The moon had risen, and the scene was almost as light as day.  Now he could count the crowding host of his enemies, and just as he broke from the forest road into the old clearing, he turned in his saddle and fired.  The foremost of the pack rolled over and over; the rest gathered around and tore their leader in pieces.

By the time they resumed the chase, Allan was a hundred yards ahead with his rifle loaded.  He determined to make a running fight of it to the hill, where he was sure of meeting his father, or could take to a tree and shoot until help came.  This had hardly flashed through his brain when, right ahead of him, a detachment of the pack sprang into the road and answered with double yells the cries of the rest coming up behind.  The horse wheeled suddenly, almost unseating Allan, and dashed across the clearing toward the wood; but he had not taken a dozen bounds when a wolf sprang upon him.  Old Bob reared and fell, pitching Allan nearly twenty feet ahead, and was covered with wolves before he could regain his footing.  That was the last of poor old Bob.

[Illustration:  “Old Bob fell, pitching Allan ahead.”]