The wind moaned dismally around the little hut, at times giving it a wrench as if it would topple it from its foundations. The spruces and firs in the neighborhood creaked and tossed in the breath of the tempest, and there was a dull, heavy roar from the head of the Falls. Suddenly, amid all these sounds, the solitary old man's quick ear caught a peculiar cry coming from the direction of the road. It was a sharp, shrill bark, followed by a low whine. He sat up, bent his head and listened again. Velour's fur stood on end, and its whisker bristled like wire. The sound was heard again, made clearer and more striking by a sudden rush of wind. "A wolf, a wolf!" exclaimed Batoche, as he sprang from his seat, seized his gun from its hooks and rushed out of the house. He did not hesitate one moment as to the direction which he should take, but bent his steps to the main road. "Never. Oh, it can never be," he gasped, as he hurried along. "God would never throw her into the wolf's embrace."-- He reached the road at last, and paused on its border to listen. He was not disappointed, for within one hundred or two hundred yards of him, he heard for the third time the ominous yelp of the wolf. Then all the hunter showed itself in Batoche. He became, at once, a new man. The bent form straightened, the languid limbs became nerved, the sinister eyes shot fire, as if lighting the way before them, and the blank melancholy features were turned and hardened into one single expression--watching. In a moment he had determined the exact direction of the sound. Cautiously he advanced from tree to tree, with inaudible footfall and bated breath, until he reached the outskirts of a thicket. There he expected to bring the wolf to bay. He peered long and attentively through the branches. "It is a den of wolves," he whispered to himself. "Not one pair of eyes, but four or five pairs are glancing through the dark. I must make quick work of the vermin. They must not be allowed to take their residences for the winter so near my cabin." Saying which he raised his carbine to his shoulder and pointed. His finger was upon the trigger and was about to let go, when he felt the barrel of his gun bent from its position and quietly but firmly deflected towards the ground. "Don't be a fool, Batoche. Keep your ammunition for other wolves than these. You will soon need it all," said a voice in a low tone. The hunter immediately recognized Barbin, a farmer of Beauport. "What are you doing here?" "No time for questions to-night. You will know later." "And who are those in the thicket yonder?" "My friends and yours." Batoche shook his head dubiously, and muttered something about going forward to satisfy himself by personal inspection. He was an enemy of prowlers of all sorts, and must know with whom he had to deal before abandoning the search. A low whistle was heard and the thicket was instantaneously cleared.