Not knowing what it meant, but apprehending some new danger, he drew himself upon the limb with a spasmodic effort, and then turned to see what it meant. To his amazement and terror, he discovered that it was an immense wolf, which had made a snap at and narrowly missed his heels.

It had come like a shadow, making no announcement of its presence, and a second or two sooner would have brought the two into collision.

As Fred looked downward the wolf looked upward, and the two glared at each other for a minute or so, as if they meant to stare each other out of countenance. The wolf was unusually large, belonging to what is known as the mountain species, and he seemed capable of leaping up among the limbs without any extra effort; but wolves are not addicted to climbing trees, and the one in question seemed to content himself with looking up and meditating upon the situation. It seemed to the lad that he was saying:

"Well, young man, you're up there out of my reach, but I can afford to wait; you'll have to come down pretty soon."

"If I only had some powder and ball," reflected Fred, "I'd soon wipe you out."

The temptation was very strong to spend the last bullet upon him, but he could not fail to see the absurdity of the thing; besides which, his gun was seated upon the ground, with the muzzle pointed upward at him. He could reach it from his perch on the lowermost limb, but it was hardly safe to attempt it while his enemy was seated there upon his haunches, as if debating whether he should go up or not.

The boy was in terror lest the brute should strike the piece and knock it down, in which case it was likely to be discharged and to be placed altogether beyond his reach. But the dreaded creature sat as motionless as if he were a carved statue in front of some gentleman's residence, his eyes fixed upon his supper, which had escaped him by such a narrow chance. The situation was about as interesting as it could well be, and, in fact, it was rather too interesting for Fred, who was alarmed at the prospect of being besieged by a mountain wolf.

After the lapse of a minute or two, the brute quietly rose from his haunches, trotted a few paces, and then gave utterance to the dismal wail peculiar to his species. It had a baying, howling tone, which made the chills creep over the boy from head to foot. He had heard the barking and howling of wolves when crossing the prairies, but there was deep, thunderous ba.s.s to the one which now struck upon his ear such as he had never before heard, and which gave it a significance that was like a voice from the tomb.

The instant the brute left his station, Fred reached down, seized the muzzle of his gun, and drew it up. Then he made his way some twenty feet above, where he could feel secure against any daring leap from his foe.

He had scarcely perched himself in this position, when the bay of the wolf was answered from fully a dozen different directions.

He had called to his comrades, and their replies came from every point of the compa.s.s--the same rumbling, hoa.r.s.e, wailing howls that had notified them where a prize awaited them. A minute later, the brute trotted back to his place, where he sat down until the arrival of reinforcements.

"It isn't one wolf, but a hundred, that going to besiege me!" gasped the terrified boy.

He spoke the truth.

CHAPTER XXI. A TERRIBLE NIGHT

The prospect of being besieged all night in a tree by a pack of mountain wolves was not a pleasant one by any means, and Fred, who had climbed up among the branches with the object of securing a few hours' slumber, found little chance of closing his eyes for even a minute.

"It might have been worse," he reflected, as he listened to the dismal howling, "for if they had happened to come down upon me when I was walking along the ravine, I could n't have gotten into any place like this in time to save me. Wolves don't know how to climb trees, and so long as I stay here I'm all right; but I can't stay here forever."

By-and-by there was a sharp pattering upon the ground, and then the hoa.r.s.e howling changed to quick, dog-like yelps, such as these animals emit when leaping down upon their prey, and which may be supposed to mean exultation.

Fred came down sufficiently far from his perch to get a glimpse of the ground beneath. He saw nearly a score of huge mountain wolves, bounding hither and thither, and over each other, and back and forth, as though going through some preliminary exercise, so as to prepare themselves for the feast that was soon to be theirs.

"If I was down there," thought the boy, with a shudder, "I suppose I'd last them about two minutes, and then they'd be hungrier than ever.

They'll stay there all night, but I wonder if they'll go away in the morning. If they don't, I can't tell what's to become of me."

He watched them awhile with a lingering fear that some of them might manage to get among the branches, but they did not make the attempt.

They had sufficient dexterity to leap from the ground up among the lowermost limbs, but had no power of retaining their position, or doing anything after they got there.

Nature had unfitted them for such work, and they did not try it. They seemed to possess tireless activity, and they kept up their leaping and frolicing as though they had nothing else in the world to do.

After watching them until he was tired, Fred carefully climbed up among the branches again, where he secured himself as firmly as was possible.

He had lain his rifle across a couple of limbs above his head, and fixed upon a place within a dozen feet or so of the top, as the one offering the best support.

Here two or three limbs were gnarled and twisted in such a way that he could seat himself and arrange his body in such a way that he could have enjoyed a night's slumber with as much refreshment as if stretched out upon a blanket on the ground. But the serenade below was not calculated to soothe his nerves into soft, downy sleep, and he shuddered at the thought of sitting where he was for four or five hours, with the pattering feet below him, varied by a yelp or howl, when he should feel disposed to close his eyes.

"But, then, it can't be helped," he added to himself, endeavoring to look philosophically at the matter. "I ought to be thankful that they didn't catch me before I reached the tree, and so I am; and I would be very thankful, too, if they would go away and leave me alone. I've got a bed here twice as good as I expected to find, and could sleep as well as anywhere else."

Almost any sound long continued becomes monotonous, and thus it was that scarcely a half-hour had pa.s.sed when, in spite of the dreadful beasts below, his eyes began to grow heavy and his head to droop.

But at this juncture he received a terrible shock. Just as everything was becoming dreamy and unreal, he was startled by a jarring of the tree, as though struck with some heavy object. When it was repeated several times, his senses returned to him, and he raised his head and listened.

"I wonder what that can be?" he said to himself. "Is some one hitting the tree? No, it isn't that."

It seemed not so much a jarring of the trunk as a swaying of the whole tree.

Puzzled and alarmed, Fred drew his legs from their rather cramped position, and picked his way downward among the limbs until he had descended far enough to inform himself.

"Heaven save me! they're in the tree!" he gasped, paralyzed for the moment with terror.

In one sense, such was the case. The frolicsome wolves had varied their amus.e.m.e.nt by springing upward among the lowermost branches. A brute would make a jump, and, landing upon the limb, sustain himself until one or two of his comrades imitated his performance, when they would all come tumbling to the ground.

Thus, it may be said, they were climbing the tree, but they were scarcely in it when they were out of it again, and Fred had nothing to fear from that source.

In his fright, he hastily clambered back again after his rifle, with the intention of shooting the one that was nearest, but by the time he laid his hand upon the weapon his terror had lessened so much that he concluded to wait until a.s.sured that it was necessary. And a few minutes' waiting convinced him that he had nothing to fear from that source. It was only another phase of the hilarious fun they were keeping up for their own amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I guess I'll try it again," concluded Fred, as he proceeded to stow his arms and legs into position for the nap which he came so near commencing a few minutes before.

He did not consider it within the range of possibility that he could unconsciously displace his limbs during sleep sufficiently to permit him to fall.

He heard the yelping and occasional baying below, the rustling among the limbs, and the undulation caused by the animals leaping upward among the branches; but they ceased to disturb him after a time, and became like the sound of falling water in the ears of the hunter by his camp-fire.

It was not long before slumber stole away his senses, and he slept.

A healthful boy generally sleeps well, and is untroubled by dreams, unless he has been indulging in some indiscretion in the way of diet, but the stirring scenes of the last few days were so impressed upon the mind of Fred that they reappeared in his visions of night, as he lived them all over again. He was again standing in the silent wood along the Rio Pecos, with Mickey O'Rooney, watching for the stealthy approach of the Apaches. As time pa.s.sed, he saw the excited figure of Sut Simpson the scout, as he came thundering over the prairie, with his warning cry of the approach of the red-skins. The rattling fight in front of the young settlement, the repulse of the Apaches, the swoop of Lone Wolf and the lad's capture, the night ride, the encampment among the mountains, his own singular escape, and, finally, his siege by the mountain wolves--all these pa.s.sed through the mind of the sleeping lad, and finally settled down to a hand-to-hand fight with the leader of the brutes.

Fred fancied that the two had met in the ravine, and, clubbing his gun, he whacked the beast over his head every time he leaped at him.

He struck him royal, resounding blows, too, but, somehow or other, they failed to produce any effect. The wolf kept coming and coming again, until, at last, the boy concluded he would wind up the bout by jumping upon, and throwing him down, and then deliberately choking him to death.

He made the jump, and awakening instantly, found he had leaped "out of bed," and was falling downward through the limbs. It all flashed upon the lad with the suddenness of lightning.

He remembered the ravenous wolves, and, with a shuddering horror which cannot be pictured or imagined, felt that he was dropping directly into their fangs. It was the instinct of nature which caused him to throw out his feet and hands in the hope of checking his fall.

By a hair's breadth he succeeded. But it was nearly the lowermost limb which he grasped with his desperate clutch, and hung with his arms dangling within reach of the wolves below.

The famished brutes seemed to be expecting this choice tid-bit to drop into their maws, and their yelps and howls became wilder than ever, and they nearly broke each other's necks in their furious frolicing back and forth.

The moment young Munson succeeded in checking himself, he made a quick effort to draw up his feet and regain his place beyond the reach of the brutes. It was done in a twinkling, but not soon enough to escape one of the creatures, which made a leap and fastened upon his foot.

The lad was just twisting himself over the limb, when he felt one of his shoes seized in the jaws of a wolf. The sudden addition to his weight drew him down again, and almost jerked his hold from the limb, in which event he would have been snapped up and disposed of before he could have made a struggle in the way of resistance. But he held on, and with an unnatural spasm of strength, drew himself and the clogging weight part way up, kicking both feet with the fury of despair.

The wolf held fast to one shoe, while the heel of the other was jammed into his eyes. This, however, would not have dislodged him, had not his own comrades interfered, and defeated the brute by their own eager greediness. Seeing that the first one had fastened to the prize, a half-dozen of them began leaping upward with the purpose of securing a share in the same. In this way they got into each other's way, and all came tumbling to the ground in a heap.

Before they could repeat the performance the terrified lad was a dozen feet beyond their reach, and climbing still higher.

When Fred reached his former perch, he was in doubt whether he should halt or go still higher. His heart was throbbing violently, and he was white and panting from the frightful shock he had received.