as the hound dashed past.  With a howl of rage and pain, Captain clawed the ground in his effort to recover himself, but before he could renew his attack, and just as the wolf was setting forth again, like a cyclone Queen was upon them.  So terrific was her impact, that dogs and wolf rolled under the tent door in one snarling, fighting, snapping mass of legs and tails and squirming bodies.  Immediately from within rose a wild shriek of terror.

“Mercy sakes alive!  What, what is this?  Help!  Help!  Help!  Where are you all?  Will some one not come to my help?” Kalman sprang from his horse, rushed forward, and lifted the tent door.  A new outcry greeted his ear.

“Get out, get out, you man!” He dropped the flap, fled aghast before the appalling vision of Aunt Janet in night attire, with a ring of curl-papers round her head, driven back into the corner of the tent, and crouched upon a box, her gown drawn tight about her, while she gazed in unspeakable horror at the whirling, fighting mass upon the tent floor at her feet.  Higher and higher rose her shrieks above the din of the fight.  From a neighbouring tent there rushed forth a portly, middle-aged gentleman in pyjamas, gun in hand.

“What is it, Katharine?  Where are you, Katharine?”

“Where am I?  Where but here, ye gowk!  Oh, Robert!  Robert!  I shall be devoured alive.”

The stout gentleman ran to the door of the tent, lifted the flap, and plunged in.  With equal celerity he plunged back again, shouting, “Whatever is all yon?”

“Robert!  Robert!” screamed the voice, “come back and save me.”

“What is this, sir?” indignantly turning upon Kalman, who stood in bewildered uncertainty.

“It is a wolf, sir, that my dogs—­”

“A wolf!” screamed the portly gentleman, springing back from the door.

“Go in, sir; go in at once and save my sister!  What are you looking at, sir?  She will be devoured alive.  I beseech you.  I am in no state to attack a savage beast.”

From another tent appeared a young man, rotund of form and with a chubby face.  He was partly dressed, his night-robe being stuffed hastily into his trousers, and he held the camp axe in his hand.

“What the deuce is the row?” he exclaimed.  “By Jove! sounds like a beastly dog fight.”

“Aunt Janet!  Aunt Janet!  What is the matter?” A girl in a dressing-gown, with her hair streaming behind her, came rushing from another tent, and sprang towards the door of the tent, from which came the mingled clamour of the fighting dogs and the terror-stricken woman.  Kalman stepped quickly in front of her, caught her round the waist, and swung her behind him.

“Go back!” he cried.  “Get away, all of you.”  There was an immediate clearance of the space in front of the tent.  Seizing a club, he sprang among the fighting beasts.