All the time I had a feeling that he was near and evading me, and at last I stopped looking for him. For all I knew he might have a camp somewhere; and camp or none, he had said pretty plainly he did not want me. I went home, angry and baffled.

It was a freezing night. The very moon looked fierce with cold. The shack snapped with frost as I sat down to the supper I could not eat for the thought of the poor soul outside; and as I sat I heard a sound, a soft, imploring call, — the same, only nearer and more insistent, as the cry on the wind the night after I first saw the priest. I was at the door, when something stopped me. I do not exaggerate when I say the mad priest's voice was in my ears: "If there comes one to your door after nightfall, do not let him in. Do not open for any crying. If I had strength to kneel, I would kneel to you."

I do not think any pen on earth could put down the entreaty of that miserable voice, but even remembering it I would have disregarded it, if, before I could so much as draw breath, that soft calling had not broken into a great ravening howl, bestial, full of malice. For a moment I thought the priest had come back raving mad; I thought silly thoughts of my cellar and my medicine chest; but as I turned for my knitted sash to tie him with, the horrid howl came again, and I knew it was no man, but a beast. Or I think that is a lie. I knew nothing, except that outside was something more horrible than I had ever dreamed of, and that I could not open my door.

I did go to the window; I put a light there for the priest to see, if he came; but I did no more. That very day I had said, "There will be no more calling,” and

here, in my sober senses, stood and sweated because my words were turned into a lie.

There seemed to be two voices, yet I knew it was but one. First would come the soft wailing, with the strange drawing in it. There was more terror for me in that than in the furious snarl to which it always changed; for while it was imploring it was all I could do not to let in the one who cried out there. Just as I could withstand no longer the ravening malice of the second cry would stop me short. It was as if one called and one forbade me. But I knew there were no two things outside.

I may as well set down my shame and be done. I was afraid. I stood holding my frantic dog, and dared not look at the unshuttered window, lest I should see I knew not what inhuman face looking at me through the frail pane. If I had had the heathen charm, I should have fallen to the cowardice of using it.

It may have been ten minutes that I stood with frozen blood. All I am sure of is that I came to my senses with a great start, remembering the defenseless priest outside. I shut up my dog, took my gun, opened my door in a fury, and did not shoot.

Not ten yards from me a wolf crouched in the snow, a dark and lonely thing. My gun was in my shoulder, but as he came at me the sound that broke from his throat loosened my arm. It was human. There is no other word for it. As I stood, sick and stupid, the poor brute stopped his rush with a great slither in the snow that was black with his blood in the moonlight, and ran, -ran terribly, lamely, from my sight, but not before I had seen a wide white bandage bound round his gray-black back and breast.

"The priest's dog!" I said. I thought a hundred things, and dared not meddle with what I did not understand.

I searched as best I might for what I knew I should not find - searched till the dawn broke in a lurid sky; and under that crimson light I found the man I had called brother on the crimson snow. And as I hope to die in a house and in my bed, my rags I gave for the dying beast were round his breast, my blanket huddled at his hand. But his face, as I looked on him, I should not have known, for it was young. I put down my loaded gun, that I was glad was loaded still, and I carried the dead home. I saw no wounded wolf nor the trace of one, except the long track from my door to the priest's body, and that was marked by neither teeth nor claws, but, under my rags, with bullets.

Well, he had his Christian burial! — though Father Moore, good, smooth man, would not hear my tale. The dead priest had been outcast by his own will, not the Church's; had roamed the country for a thousand miles, a thing afraid and a thing of fear. And now someone had killed him, perhaps by mistake.

"Who knows?" finished Father Moore softly. "Who knows? But I will have no hue and cry made about it. He was once, at least, a servant of God, and these,' he glanced at the queer-looking bullets that had fallen from the dead man's side as I made him ready for burial, - "I will encourage no senseless superstition in my people by trying to trace these. Especially " But he did not finish.

So we dug the priest's grave, taking turn by turn, for we are not young; and his brother in God buried him.

What either of us thought about the whole matter he did not say.

But the very day after, while the frozen mound of consecrated earth was raw in the sunshine, Andrew walked in at my door.

"We come back," he announced. "All good here now! Lame wolf dead. Shoot him after dark, silver bullet. Wegulădĭmooch. Bochtůsům." 1

He said never a word about the new grave. And neither did I.

1 Evil spirit, wolf. Wegulădimooch is a word no Indian cares to

say.

FIRE OF APPLE-WOOD

BY M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE

THE windows toward the east and north Rattle and drip against the storm. Though spring, without, has ventured forth, Only the fireside here is warm.

Through wind-swept sheets of driven rain
The ancient orchard shows forlorn,

Like brave old soldiery half slain,
With gaps to tell the losses borne.

And fragments of the fallen trees

Burn on the hearth before me bright; The fire their captive spirit frees: Musing, I watch it take its flight.

In embers flushed and embers pale
Sparkle the blooms of some far spring;
Of bees and sunshine what a tale
Told in a moment's flowering!

How swift the flames of gold and blue
Up from the glowing logs aspire!
There yellowbird and bluebird flew,
And oriole, each with wings of fire.