I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves having regained their feet, sprang directly towards me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close at my back, when I glided round and dashed directly past them. A fierce yell greeted my evolution, and the wolves, slipping on their haunches, sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times, the animals becoming more excited and baffled every moment.

At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my sanguinary antagonists came so near that they threw their white foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap! Had my skates failed for one instant,—had I tripped on a stick, or had my foot been caught in a fissure of the ice,—the story I am now telling would never have been told.