The Wolf-Leader. Dumas Alexandre

Covert at some considerable distance from it, and then gradually advance so as to form a cordon round it. Everything was to be done with the utmost silence, it being well known that wolves decamp on hearing the slightest noise. Each of us was ordered to look carefully along the path he followed, to make quite sure that the wolf had not left the covert. Meanwhile the field-keeper was holding Mocquet’s hounds in leash.

      One by one we took our stand facing the covert, on the spot to which our particular path had conducted us. As it happened, Mocquet and I found ourselves on the north side of the warren, which was parallel with the forest.

      Mocquet had rightly said that we should be in the best place, for the wolf would in all probability try and make for the forest, and so would break covert on our side of it.

      We took our stand, each in front of an oak tree, fifty paces apart from one another, and then we waited, without moving, and hardly daring to breathe. The dogs on the farther side of the warren were now uncoupled; they gave two short barks, and were then silent. The keeper followed them into the covert, calling halloo as he beat the trees with his stick. But the dogs, their eyes starting out of their heads, their lips drawn back, and their coats bristling, remained as if nailed to the ground. Nothing would induce them to move a step further.

      “Halloa, Mocquet!” cried the keeper, “this wolf of yours must be an extra plucky one, Rocador and Tombelle refuse to tackle him.”

      But Mocquet was too wise to make any answer, for the sound of his voice would have warned the wolf that there were enemies in that direction.

      The keeper went forward, still beating the trees, the two dogs after him cautiously advancing step by step, without a bark, only now and then giving a low growl.

      All of a sudden there was a loud exclamation from the keeper, who called out, “I nearly trod on his tail! the wolf! the wolf! Look out, Mocquet, look out!”

      And at that moment something came rushing towards us, and the animal leapt out of the covert, passing between us like a flash of lightning. It was an enormous wolf, nearly white with age. Mocquet turned and sent two bullets after him; I saw them bound and rebound along the snow.

      “Shoot, shoot!” he called out to me.

      Only then did I bring my gun to the shoulder; I took aim, and fired; the wolf made a movement as if he wanted to bite his shoulder.

      “We have him! we have him!” cried Mocquet, “the lad has hit his mark! Success to the innocent!”

      But the wolf ran on, making straight for Moynat and Mildet, the two best shots in the country round.

      Both their first shots were fired at him in the open; the second, after he had entered the forest.

      The two first bullets were seen to cross one another, and ran along the ground, sending up spurts of snow; the wolf had escaped them both, but he had no doubt been struck down by the others; that the two keepers who had just fired should miss their aim, was an un-heard of thing. I had seen Moynat kill seventeen snipe one after the other; I had seen Mildet cut a squirrel in two as he was jumping from tree to tree.

      The keepers went into the forest after the wolf; we looked anxiously towards the spot where they had disappeared. We saw them reappear, dejected, and shaking their heads.

      “Well?” cried Mocquet interrogatively.

      “Bah!” answered Mildet, with an impatient movement of his arm, “he’s at Taille-Fontaine by this time.”

      “At Taille-Fontaine!” exclaimed Mocquet, completely taken aback. “What! the fools have gone and missed him, then!”

      “Well, what of that? you missed him yourself, did you not?”

      Mocquet shook his head.

      “Well, well, there’s some devilry about this,” he said. “That I should miss him was surprising, but it was perhaps possible; but that Moynat should have shot twice and missed him is not possible, no, I say, no.”

      “Nevertheless, so it is, my good Mocquet.”

      “Besides, you, you hit him,” he said to me.

      “I!.. are you sure?”

      “We others may well be ashamed to say it. But as sure as my name is Mocquet, you hit the wolf.”

      “Well, it’s easy to find out if I did hit him, there would be blood on the snow. – Come, Mocquet, let us run and see.” And suiting the action to the word, I set off running.

      “Stop, stop, do not run, whatever you do,” cried Mocquet, clenching his teeth and stamping. “We must go quietly, until we know better what we have to deal with.”

      “Well, we will go quietly, then; but at any rate, let us go!”

      Mocquet then began to follow the wolf’s track, step by step.

      “There’s not much fear of losing it,” I said.

      “It’s plain enough.”

      “Yes, but that’s not what I am looking for.”

      “What are you looking for, then?”

      “You will know in a minute or two.”

      The other huntsmen had now joined us, and as they came along after us, the keeper related to them what had taken place. Meanwhile, Mocquet and I continued to follow the wolf’s footprints, which were deeply indented in the snow. At last we came to the spot where he had received my fire.

      “There, Mocquet,” I said to him, “you see I did miss him after all!”

      “How do you know that you missed him?”

      “Because there are no blood marks.”

      “Look for the mark of your bullet, then, in the snow.”

      I looked to see which way my bullet would have sped if it had not hit the wolf, and then went in that direction; but I tracked for more than a quarter of a mile to no purpose, so I thought I might as well go back to Mocquet. He beckoned to the keepers to approach, and then turning to me, said: —

      “Well, and the bullet?”

      “I cannot find it.”

      “I have been luckier than you, then, for I have found it.”

      “What, you found it?”

      “Right about and come behind me.”

      I did as I was told, and the huntsmen having come up, Mocquet pointed out a line to them beyond which they were not to pass. The keepers Mildet and Moynat now joined us. “Well?” said Mocquet to them in their turn.

      “Missed,” they both answered at once.

      “I saw you had missed him in the open, but when he had reached covert …?”

      “Missed him there too.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Both the bullets have been found, each of them in the trunk of a tree.”

      “It is almost past belief,” said Vatrin.

      “Yes,” rejoined Mocquet, “it is almost past belief, but I have something to show you which is even more difficult to believe.”

      “Show it us, then.”

      “Look there, what do you see on the snow?”

      “The track of a wolf; what of that?”

      “And close to the mark of the right foot – there – what do you see?”

      “A little hole.”

      “Well, do you understand?”

      The keepers looked at each other in astonishment.

      “Do you understand now?” repeated Mocquet.

      “The thing’s impossible!” exclaimed the keepers.

      “Nevertheless it is so, and I will prove it to you.”

      And so saying, Mocquet plunged his hand into the snow, felt about a moment or two, and then, with a