MIDNIGHT cold, dreary, ghostly. A dead grim silence over the lifeless village and lonely high road. A faint glimmer of moonlight, giving a weird spectral look to the half-seen outlines of the dark silent, log-huts, and making the gloomy depths of the encircling forest seem all the blacker. A shapeless mass lying out upon the hard snow of the cross-roads, and a dark figure crouched behind a fence hard by, with something in its hand which glitters as the moon falls upon it.

Weary, weary work, crouching there in the cold and darkness, with the stiffening fingers clutching the heavy hatchet, and the strained ears watchful to catch the slightest sound.

Hark! was not that a low howl from the far distance?

No, it was but the wind moaning through the skeleton branches of the forest. Patience yet!

Hark, again and this time there is no mistaking the sound; not the long melancholy howl wherewith a supperless wolf may be heard bemoaning himself, on the outskirts of Moscow, almost any night in the week, but a quick snarling cry, as of one who sees his food near at hand, and wishes to hasten its arrival.

There, gliding ghost-like over the great waste of snow, comes a long gaunt shadow, straight, swift, unswerving, towards yonder shapeless lump of carrion on the highway, upon which he pounces with a fierce worrying snarl that makes even the brave heart of the listener stand still for a moment with involuntary horror.

Now is Vladimir's time! To rush out at once might scare the beast away; he must first try to cripple it.

The axe flies at the monster's head with the force of a catapult; but the dim light deceives his aim, and it hits the fore shoulder instead, tearing it open with a frightful gash, from which the blood gushes freely over the snow.

With a sharp howl of pain, the wolf turns and flies; but the swiftest foot in the country is hard at his heels. After his long weary vigil, this breakneck chase is like the breath of life to Vladimir, and, over this hard smooth snow, his speed is a match for any wolf wounded like this one. Already he has almost come up with the

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game, and is raising his knife for a sure stroke, when the flying grey shadow in front of him suddenly wheels round, shoots up from the earth like a rocket, and falls right on the breast of his pursuer.

Down go man and wolf amid a whirl of flying snow, while a shrill yell rings out on the silent air; for even in the sudden shock of that death-grapple Vladimir's knife has found time to come home, and the hot blood pours over his face and breast from the wounded side of his adversary.

And so, far out on the lonely plain, with the cold moon looking pitilessly down upon it, begins the tug for life or death.

Over and over they roll in the bloody snow, the wolf clutching at the throat of the man, the man burying his knife in the side of the wolf. Crushed to the earth beneath a stifling weight-spent with his long watch and headlong run-with certain death glaring at him from the yellow murderous eyes of the savage brute, the stubborn Russian still fights doggedly on.

In the hot fury of that mortal struggle, the fierce hunter-nature awakes, sweeping away all memory of his comrades, his wife, his devotion. He feels only the longing to tear and kill tingling to his very finger-ends-only the grim enjoyment of plunging his knife again and again into that gaunt muscular side where the life seems to lie so deep.

See! those merciless stabs are at length be

ginning to tell; the fierce yellow eyes are growing dim, the huge jaws quiver convulsively, and from their edges the froth and blood drip in hot flakes upon Vladimir's face. But now, with a mighty effort, the wolf wrenches his head from the iron grasp of Vladimir's left arm, and with one fierce crunch of his strong teeth breaks the bone below the elbow. The limb drops powerless at his side.

One more desperate stab into the quivering flesh of his enemy, and then he feels the savage teeth fastening upon his throat; everything swims around him, there is a rushing as of water in his ears, a thousand sparks dance before his eyes, and then all is blank.

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God be praised, brother, that you are still alive!" said a gruff voice in Vladimir's ear, as he recovered consciousness; while, at the same moment, a soft arm was thrown round his neck, and a fervent "Thank God!" murmured by a sweet voice that he knew well.

"Where am I?" asked Vladimir, looking vacantly round, and recognising first his wife and then his host of the evening before.

'Where are you?" repeated Alec; "why, in my hut, to be sure, where you've been ever since we brought you in last night. You know, when you went out, we followed at a distance; and as soon as we saw you start in chase of the wolf, we set off after you; but it's not everybody that can run like you, so we didn't catch you up till Uncle

Greycoat' was beginning to get the best of it. Well, when we'd settled him with our hatchets, we carried you back here; and the doctor has been and tied up your arm, and says you're sure to recover if you only keep quiet."

And recover he did, sure enough; and from that day forward the whole village called Vladimir nothing but the "Peasant Hero."

LEARN:

Cat'-a-pult, a military engine used by Vig'-il, watch, avoidance of sleep.

When it is very cold, water freezes and becomes solid: this we call ice, and it is often so thick on the lakes and ponds that people can walk, slide, or skate upon it quite safely. Sometimes the moisture which forms the clouds freezes as it falls, and then it comes down to the earth in flakes of snow; these you have often seen fall like a shower of tiny white feathers from the sky above. Sometimes the raindrops or the snowflakes are changed as they descend into hailstones. Frozen dew is called hoar-frost.