Its headlong career was first checked by the sight of the
fire; then arose a dark circle of men, each armed and accustomed to
the chase. In much less time than it has taken to record the fact,
that little piece of bottom-land was crowded with wolves, deer, and
men. The headlong impetuosity of the chase and flight had prevented
the scent from acting, and all were huddled together, for a single
instant, in a sort of inextricable confusion. Brief as was this
melee, it sufficed to allow of a young hunter's driving his arrow
through the heart of the buck, and enabled others among the Indians
to kill several of the wolves; some with arrows, others with knives,
etc. No rifle was used, probably from a wish not to give an alarm.
The wolves were quite as much astonished at this unexpected
rencontre, as the Indians. They were not a set of hungry and
formidable beasts, that famine might urge to any pass of
desperation; but a pack hunting, like gentlemen, for their own
amusement. Their headlong speed was checked less by the crowd of
men, than by the sight of fire. In their impetuosity, it is probable
that they would have gone clean through five hundred men, but no
wild beast will willingly encounter fire.
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