The party in chase soon came up, and while some stopt to parley and sympathize with her, others pushed on after the animal--the spitzbug, as she spitefully called him. By this time the wolf had made a circuit of the southern part of the village, and scampered down the old factory road, by the mill dam, under the old dark bridge at the saw mill, and up the hill by the old public store; and thus turned his course back towards the north, into the thickest part of the village, where he had first entered. He had made a complete circuit. All was valour, boasting, and hot speed behind him, but the wolf had been too nimble for them. Unluckily for him, however, while the main group pushed behind, just as he was scampering up the old store hill, he was suddenly headed by a party coming down it. This party was led by old Colonel S., a revolutionary soldier, a field-officer of the county militia, and the superintendent of the extensive manufacturing establishment from which the village drew its prosperity. He was armed with a fusil of the olden time, well charged, and having been roused from his bed in a hurry, could not at the moment find his hat, and clapt on an old revolutionary cocked hat, which hung in the room. His appearance was most opportune; he halted on the brow of the hill; and as the wolf bounded on he levelled his piece at the passing fugitive, and fired. He had aimed at the shoulders; the fleetness of its speed, however, saved its vital parts, but the shot took effect in the animal's hind legs. They were both broken at a shot. This brought him down. The poor creature tried to drag himself on by his fore paws, but his pursuers were too close upon him, and they soon dispatched him with hatchets and clubs. Thus fell the rabid wolf, to be long talked of by men and boys, and put down as a chief item in village traditions. But the effects of his visit did not end here. In due time, symptoms of madness seized the cattle and other animals, which had come within the reach of his teeth. Many of the finest milch cows were shot. Calves and swine, and even poultry went rabid; and as things of this kind are generally overdone, there was a perfect panic in the village on the subject, and numbers of valuable animals were doubtless shot, merely because they happened to show some restiveness at a very critical epoch.