“You have arrived at the nick of time, Ladislas.  Another three minutes, and it would have been all over with us.”

“Yes, I could see it was a close thing as soon as I caught sight of you.  We have been wondering all night what became of you, and set out as soon as it was light.  We fired a shot occasionally, but we listened in vain for your three shots.”

“We fired them half an hour after daylight,” Charlie said; “but, as we had then only five charges left between us, and there were wolves all round, we dared not waste them.”

“We heard firing at last,” the captain went on.  “First two shots faintly, then two nearer, and a minute later two others.  We knew then that you must be engaged with wolves, and we were running as hard as we could in the direction of the shots, when we heard a number fired close together.  Of course we could make nothing of it, but on we ran.  Then there was another outbreak of firing, this time quite close.  A moment later we caught sight of a confused mass.  There was a fire, and a sledge with two horses, and a man standing up in it shooting; and we could see a desperate fight going on with the wolves in front, so Alexander and Hugo fired their pieces into the thick of them.  We set up a yell, and went at them with our axes, yet I did not feel by any means sure that they would not be too many for us.

“But what on earth does it all mean?  And how is it that you have lived through the night?  We had no expectation of finding you alive.  However, that fire tells its own tale, as though nothing less than burning up a big tree would content you.”

“I will tell you all, presently.  It is too long a story now.  Let us help these travellers to go their way, before the wolves rally again.”

“They will not do that,” the captain said confidently.  “If it was night, they might hang about the neighbourhood, but they are cowardly beasts in the daytime, and easily scared.  They are still going away at their best pace, I will be bound.”

While Charlie was speaking to Ladislas, one of the travellers had been talking to Stanislas, who, in answer to his question, had informed him that he was in Charlie’s service, and that the latter was an English gentleman, who had, from a variety of circumstances, especially the suspicion with which all strangers were regarded, been unable to travel through the country, and had therefore been passing the winter hunting, with this company of disbanded soldiers who had so opportunely arrived to their assistance.

The other traveller had, by this time, carried his wife beyond the heat of the fire, and had applied some snow to her forehead, pouring a little brandy from the flask between her lips.  She had now begun to revive, and, leaving her, he approached the party.  His brother met him, and in a few words told him what he had learned from Stanislas.

“My friends,” he said, “my brother tells me that you are a party of discharged soldiers, who are passing the winter in a hut here in the forest, supporting yourselves by shooting and fishing.  I have to thank Providence for the thought that sent you here.  I have to thank you for your prompt assistance, to which we are indebted for our lives.