第68章 CHAPTER XV THE MAIDEN OF THE BROWN HAIR(3)

Two miles across the open country could be seen the poplar bluff, behind which lay the camp of the Engineer and his travelling companions. Steadily the gap between the wolf and the pursuing hounds grew less, till at length, fearing the inevitable, the hunted beast turned towards the little bluff, and entered it with the dogs only a few yards behind. Alas! for him, the bluff afforded no shelter. Right through the little belt of timber dashed the wolf with the dogs and Kalman hard upon his trail. At the very instant that the wolf came opposite the door of Aunt Janet's tent, Captain reached for the extreme point of the beast's extended tail. Like a flash, the brute doubled upon his pursuer, snapping fiercely as the hound dashed past. With a howl of rage and pain, Captain clawed the ground in his effort to recover himself, but before he could renew his attack, and just as the wolf was setting forth again, like a cyclone Queen was upon them. So terrific was her impact, that dogs and wolf rolled under the tent door in one snarling, fighting, snapping mass of legs and tails and squirming bodies. Immediately from within rose a wild shriek of terror.

"Mercy sakes alive! What, what is this? Help! Help! Help!

Where are you all? Will some one not come to my help?" Kalman sprang from his horse, rushed forward, and lifted the tent door. A new outcry greeted his ear.

"Get out, get out, you man!" He dropped the flap, fled aghast before the appalling vision of Aunt Janet in night attire, with a ring of curl-papers round her head, driven back into the corner of the tent, and crouched upon a box, her gown drawn tight about her, while she gazed in unspeakable horror at the whirling, fighting mass upon the tent floor at her feet. Higher and higher rose her shrieks above the din of the fight. From a neighbouring tent there rushed forth a portly, middle-aged gentleman in pyjamas, gun in hand.

"What is it, Katharine? Where are you, Katharine?"

"Where am I? Where but here, ye gowk! Oh, Robert! Robert! I shall be devoured alive."

The stout gentleman ran to the door of the tent, lifted the flap, and plunged in. With equal celerity he plunged back again, shouting, "Whatever is all yon?"

"Robert! Robert!" screamed the voice, "come back and save me."

"What is this, sir?" indignantly turning upon Kalman, who stood in bewildered uncertainty.

"It is a wolf, sir, that my dogs--"

"A wolf!" screamed the portly gentleman, springing back from the door.

"Go in, sir; go in at once and save my sister! What are you looking at, sir? She will be devoured alive. I beseech you.

I am n no state to attack a savage beast."

From another tent appeared a young man, rotund of form and with a chubby face. He was partly dressed, his night-robe being stuffed hastily into his trousers, and he held the camp axe in his hand.

"What the deuce is the row?" he exclaimed. "By Jove! sounds like a beastly dog fight."

"Aunt Janet! Aunt Janet! What is the matter?" A girl in a dressing-gown, with her hair streaming behind her, came rushing from another tent, and sprang towards the door of the tent, from which came the mingled clamour of the fighting dogs and the terror-stricken woman. Kalman stepped quickly in front of her, caught her round the waist, and swung her behind him.

"Go back!" he cried. "Get away, all of you." There was an immediate clearance of the space in front of the tent. Seizing a club, he sprang among the fighting beasts.

"Oh! you good man! Come here and save me," cried Aunt Janet in a frenzy of relief. But Kalman was too busy for the moment to give heed to her cries. As he entered, a fiercer howl arose above the din. The wolf had seized hold of Captain's upper lip and was grimly hanging on, while Queen was gripping savagely for the beast's throat. With his club Kalman struck the wolf a heavy blow, stunning it so that it released its hold on the dog. Then, catching it by the hind leg, he hauled wolf and hounds out of the tent in one squirming mass.

"God help us!" cried the stout gentleman, darting into his own tent and poking his head out through the door. "Keep the brute off.

There's my gun."

The girl screamed and ran behind Kalman. The young man with the chubby face dropped his axe and jumped hastily into a convenient wagon.

"Shoot the bloomin' brutes," he cried. "Some one bring me my gun."

But the wolf's days were numbered. Queen's powerful jaws were tearing at his throat, while Captain, having gripped him by the small of the back, was shaking him with savage fury.

"Oh! the poor thing! Call off the dogs!" cried the girl, turning to Kalman.

"No! No! Don't you think of it!" cried the man from the tent door "He will attack us."

Kalman stepped forward, and beating the dogs from their quarry, drew his pistol and shot the beast through the head.

"Get back, Captain! Back! Back! I say. Down!" With difficulty he drew the wolf from the jaws of the eager hounds, and swung it into the wagon out of the dogs' reach.

"My word!" exclaimed the young man, leaping from the wagon with precipitate haste. "What are you doing?"

"He won't hurt you, sir. He is dead."

The young man's red, chubby face, out of which peered his little round eyes, his red hair standing in a disordered halo about his head, his strange attire, with trailing braces and tag-ends of his night-robe hanging about his person, made a picture so weirdly funny that the girl went off into peals of laughter.

"Marjorie! Marjorie!" cried an indignant voice, "what are ye daein' there? Tak' shame to yersel', ye hizzie."

Marjorie turned in the direction of the voice, and again her peals of laughter burst forth. "Oh! Aunt Janet, you do look so funny."

But at once the head with its aureole of curl-papers was whipped inside the tent.

"Ye're no that fine to look at yersel', ye shameless lassie," cried Aunt Janet.