A mile? Good heavens! Jessica and Anne were already stumbling from exhaustion, while Hippy was quite winded. Another five minutes of this and at least three of the party would be food for wolves, unless something could be done. So thought David, who, breathless and light headed, was now almost carrying Anne. "Hurrah!" cried Grace, who had been running ahead of the others. "Here's Jean's hut!" There, sure enough, right in front of them, was a little house built of logs and mud. Had it been put in that particular spot years ago just to save their eight lives now? Anne wondered vaguely as she blindly stumbled on. As Grace lifted the wooden latch of the door, she looked over her shoulder. Not three hundred yards away loped five gaunt, gray animals. Their tongues hung limply from the sides of their mouths and their eyes glowered with a fierce hunger. "Hurry!" she cried, in an agony of fear. "Oh, hurry!" Tom and David were carrying Anne now, while Jessica was half staggering, assisted by Nora and Reddy. Hippy, the perspiration pouring from his face, brought up the rear, and they had scarcely pulled him in and barred the door before the wolves had reached the hut and were leaping against the walls howling and snarling. Nobody spoke for some time. Those who were not too tired were busy thinking. What was to be done? Eight young people, on a bitter cold winter afternoon, shut up in a hut in the middle of a forest while five half-starved wolves besieged the door. Presently Tom Gray began to look about him. There was a fireplace in the hut, which, by great good luck, contained the remains of a large backlog. More fuel was stacked in the corner, chiefly brushwood and sticks. He made a fire at once and the others gathered around the blaze, for they felt the penetrating chill now, after their rapid and exhausting flight through the forest. "Here's a rifle," exclaimed Grace, who was also exploring, while Tom kindled the fire. "Good!" cried Tom. "Let's see it. It may be our salvation." He seized the gun and examined the barrel, but, alas, there was only one shot left in it. They searched the hut for more cartridges, but not one could they find. In the meantime the wolves, which might have been taken for large collie dogs at a little distance, were trotting around the house, leaping against the door and windows and occasionally giving a blood-curdling howl. "Suppose you feed me to them?" groaned Hippy. "You could get almost to Oakdale before they finished me." The suggestion seemed to break the apprehensive silence that had settled down upon them, and they burst out laughing, one and all; even Anne, who was lying on a bearskin in front of the fire. "I suppose the beasts were driven down from the hills by hunger, and when they smelled the fat bacon frying, the woods couldn't hold them," observed David. "I have always heard that a hungry wolf could smell something to eat on another planet."