By the time they resumed the chase, Allan was a hundred yards ahead with his rifle loaded. He determined to make a running fight of it to the hill, where he was sure of meeting his father, or could take to a tree and shoot until help came. This had hardly flashed through his brain when, right ahead of him, a detachment of the pack sprang into the road and answered with double yells the cries of the rest coming up behind. The horse wheeled suddenly, almost unseating Allan, and dashed across the clearing toward the wood; but he had not taken a dozen bounds when a wolf sprang upon him. Old Bob reared and fell, pitching Allan nearly twenty feet ahead, and was covered with wolves before he could regain his footing. That was the last of poor old Bob.
[Illustration: "OLD BOB FELL, PITCHING ALLAN AHEAD."]
But Allan! What of him? When he recovered from the effects of the shock, he found himself over head and ears in snow. He had no idea where he was, but struggled and plunged in vain endeavors to extricate himself, until at last he broke into a space that was clear of snow, but dark as Erebus, damp and close. Feeling about him he discovered over his head logs resting slantingly against the upper edge of a pit, and then he knew that he was in the cellar of the old house his father had built, and which had been burned down nine years before! The cellar was full of snow, except at the corner roofed over by the fallen logs, and Allan, bursting through the snow into the empty corner, was as secure from the wolves as though seated by his father's fireside. It was not nearly as cold in there as outside, and he found a dry spot upon which he lay down to think.
He was in no danger of freezing to death, his food would keep him from starvation a week at least, and Allan concluded that, with the first glimpse of dawn, his father would be in search of him, and, following the tracks, find old Bob's bones, and quickly rescue him from his predicament. He reasoned wisely enough, but the elements were against him. Before sunrise a furious storm of wind and snow had completely obliterated every trace of horse, rider and wolves.
At home, as the night wore on, the anxiety of the family had increased. While they were watching the gathering storm, they heard the long, dismal howl of the wolves coming over the hill. The chill of fear that they should never see the boy again settled down upon all their hearts, until the house was as dreary within as the winter waste and gloomy forest were without.