Page 225 - A Jacobite Exile

In spite of the wolves, Charlie continued his walks in the forest,
accompanied always by Stanislas. Both carried axes and pistols, and,

although Charlie had heard many tales of solitary men, and even of
vehicles, being attacked by the wolves in broad daylight, he believed that

most of the stories were exaggerations, and that the chances of two men
being attacked in daylight were small, indeed.

He had found that the track, by which the cart had brought the stores, was a
good deal used, the snow being swept away or levelled by the runners of

sledges, either those of peasants who came into the forest for wood or
charcoal, or of travellers journeying between Russia and Poland. He
generally selected this road for his walk, both because it was less laborious

than wading through the untrodden snow, and because there was here no
fear of losing his way, and he was spared the incessant watchfulness for

signs that was necessary among the trees. At first he had frequently met
peasants' carts on the road, but, since the cold became more severe and the
wolves more numerous and daring, he no longer encountered them. He had

indeed heard, from some of the last he saw, that they should come no more,
for that the charcoal burners were all abandoning their huts, and going into

the villages.

One afternoon, when they had, on their return, nearly reached the spot

where they left the road to strike across the forest to the hut, they heard a
noise behind them.

"That is a pack of wolves, in full cry!" Stanislas exclaimed. "You had better
get up into a tree. They are after something."

They hastily clambered into a tree, whose lower branches were but six or

seven feet from the ground. A moment later two horses, wild with fright,
dashed past, while some twenty yards behind them came a pack of fifty or
sixty wolves. They were almost silent now, with their red tongues hanging

out.

"The brutes have been attacking a sledge," Stanislas said in a low tone.
"You saw the horses were harnessed, and their broken traces were hanging