Oily Dave who explained the nature of the fight in which both men
had been involved.

"We'd a perticular bit of business on hand to-night," he said, in
response to the enquiring look which Mrs. Burton turned upon him,
for Stee was plainly too much upset to be coherent. "I'd got a
revolver certainly, but Stee had nothing but a knife, for we didn't
expect any trouble with wolves so early in the season, though it is
a fact we might have done, for everyone knows the place is just
about swarming with them this winter."

"Did the wolves attack you? Oh, how truly horrible!" exclaimed
Mrs. Burton, with so much genuine sympathy that both men winced
under it, hardened offenders though they were; for they knew very
well that they deserved the fate which had so nearly fallen upon
them.

"About ten of the cowards closed in on us as we were going through
a patch of cotton woods, where we couldn't move fast because of
catching our snow-shoes," Oily Dave went on, winking and blinking
in a nervous fashion. "And we were fairly cornered before we knew
where we were. One great brute came at me straight in the face. I
knocked him off with my fist and fumbled for my barker, but shot
wild and did no more damage than to singe the hair off another
brute's back; but I managed to edge a bit closer to Stee, who was
getting it rough, and hadn't even a chance to draw his knife. But
we should have been down and done for to a dead certainty, if it
hadn't been for Miss Radford and Miles. They let the dogs loose
from the sledge when they heard the rumpus, and that turned the
scale in our favour. That great white dog with the black patch on