I felt myself in a dilemma. To go forward or backward seemed equally unpromising. I had often spent nights in the bush, with or without a wigwam, and the thought of danger did not occur to me. Suddenly I recollected that about half a mile back I had passed a newly chopped and partially-logged clearing, and that there might possibly be workmen still about. So I returned to the place, and shouted for assistance; but no person was within hearing. There was, however, a small log hut, about six feet square, which the axe-men had roughly put up for protection from the rain, and in it had left some fire still burning. I was glad enough to secure even so poor a shelter as this. Everything was wet. I was without supper, and very tired after thirty miles' walk. But I tried to make the best of a bad job: collected plenty of half-consumed brands from the still blazing log-heaps, to keep up some warmth during the night, and then lay down on the round logs that had been used for seats, to sleep as best I might.
But this was not to be. At about nine o'clock there arose from the woods, first a sharp snapping bark, answered by a single yelp; then two or three yells at intervals. Again a silence, lasting perhaps five minutes. This kept on, the noise increasing in frequency, and coming nearer and again nearer, until it became impossible to mistake it for aught but the howling of wolves. The clearing might be five or six acres. Scattered over it were partially or wholly burnt log heaps. I knew that wolves would not be likely to venture amongst the fires, and that I was practically safe. But the position was not pleasant, and I should have preferred a bed at Clement's, as a matter of choice. I, however, kept up my fire very assiduously, and the evil brutes continued their concert of fiendish discords--sometimes remaining silent for a time, and anon bursting into a full chorus _fortissimo_--for many long, long hours, until the glad beams of morning peeped through the trees, and the sky grew brighter and brighter; when the wolves ceased their serenade, and I fell fast asleep, with my damp umbrella for a pillow.
With the advancing day, I awoke, stiffened in every joint, and very hungry. A few minutes' walk on my road showed me a distant opening in the woods, towards which I hastened, and found a new shanty, inhabited by a good-natured settler and his family, from whom I got some breakfast, for which they would accept nothing but thanks. They had lately been much troubled, they said, with wolves about their cattle sheds at night.