Page:Silversheene (1924).djvu/196

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not look out. He had already been within springing distance. So that night Richard slept only by fits and starts, and kept his rifle close by his side.

The following day he saw the gray wolf twice and got a shot each time, without effect. It is a question how long this game of hide-and-seek might have been kept up but for a mishap that befell Richard on the sixth day after his first seeing the Phantom Wolf.

About eight o'clock in the evening he came to a very turbulent branch of the Tanana, full of rapids and with a fine waterfall about thirty feet in height. The water was very swift above the falls and he did not want to cross there, so he followed it downstream for a quarter of a mile, but it was just one endless mass of seething rapids. Then he went back to the falls and again looked at the river above. It was getting late and he was anxious to make camp so he finally attempted a crossing about fifty feet above the falls. The