The enigma remained unexplained, and no enemy being in view, there could be but little doubt that the attack was to be from ambushment, and the column moved slowly on, expecting every moment to receive their fire. But the van officer’s attention having been accidentally attracted, he examined, and found along the road, the tracks of a large pack of wolves. The mystery was now solved; it was evident that the supposed enemy was no other than the pack of wild beasts, which, turned from their route by the fire of the sentinels, had passed still from point to point in a wide circuit, bent upon the attainment of their object. A quantity of provisions had been stored some time previously on their line of march, but having become spoiled, it was abandoned in the vicinity of the night’s encampment, and the wolves had been disturbed by the videts, in the nightly progress to their regale. The agitation instantly subsided, and wit and merriment flashed on all sides, “every one appearing anxious to shift the derision from himself upon his neighbour, the commandant himself coming in for his share; and as it was the interest of the many to fix the stigma on the few, the corps unanimously charged the officer of the day, the guards, the patrols and picquets, with gross stupidity, hard bordering upon cowardice:” nevertheless, they were none the less relieved by the happy termination of an adventure attended by so many circumstances naturally alarming, and it long passed as an excellent joke in the Legion, under the title of the “Wolf reconnoitre.”