The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-17
A RUSSIAN WOLEHUNT.

The programme of a regular "wolf- hunt"
In the provinces is always the same. AT
some abnormal hour 'between the night and
the day" you are aroused (almost, as it seems,
before you are we'll asleep from rough couch
in one of the little log-huts of some outlying
village, by a violent shake of the shoulder
and boarse voice admonishing You to ''get
up, and look sharp about it, for there's no
time to lose" Yep make hasty toilet and,
sallying forth, see in front of the hut, in the
dim light of the coming morning, huge,
dark, shapeless mass (Which, as your eyes get
used to the darkness, assumes the form of
broad, heavy, three-horse sledge, with very
high sides, not unlike an enormous washing
tub, around which are fitting three or four
spectral figures with lanterns, the fitful glare
making their grim, bearded faces look
grimmtr and less human than ever.
Guns, ammunition, haversacks, are slowed
away in the bottom of the convey
ance--and Qast but not least) a young
Pig your query respecting which elicits from
the leader of the party only the oracular an
swer that 'it'll come in handy by-and-by;"
and, all being now ready the hunters, squeeze
themselves into their places, the driver shakes
his reins with "wo-o-oi !" and away we 90
into the darkness. Mile after mile of the
frozen waste goes by like dream, till at length
the spectral shadows of the forest slo WY
gather round us, and the squeals of our un-
ucky pig (whose ears one of our party is now
pinchiDg lustily) begin to be answered
by another sound, which no one
who has heard it will easily for
get-not the long melancholy howl where
with supperless wolf may be heard bemoan-
ing himself on the outskirts of Moscow,
almost any night in the week. but a quick,
snarling cry, as OF one who sees his dinner
coming, and wishes to hasten the bringer of
it. And there they come at last, the gaunt,
wiry, slouching fellows, with their bushy
tails, and fiat, narrow heads, and yellow,
thievish, murderous eyes. There is perhaps
nothing on earth more thoroughly mean and
hateful-looking, at FIRST sight, than the genu-
inc Russian wolf but the rascal has certain
picturesqueness of his own Notwithstanding
though of disagreeable kind. There is some
thing grand in the dogged and sinister tena-
city of his pursuit; coming on, with head
thrown forward, and sharp, white fangs un-
sbeathed, untiring and unrelentingly, like a
haunting Fate,
"With his long gallop, which can tire.
The hounds deep hate and hunters fire.
But there is no leisure for moralizng now:
for the wolves are already almost level with
our sledge, and it is time to let fly. Bang
The foremost of the pack rolls over on his
side, kicking convulsively; but the rest gallop
on unheeding. Bang! bang and two more
fall dead, blotting the snow around them
with a smear of dull crimson. Some
of the boldest pursuers swarm up to
the sledge, and attempt to leap over the en-
circling barrier; while we hammer them with
the butt-ends of our pieces, and chop at their
paws with hatchets, and slash them across
the eyes with uniting -knives-the two hinder
most of our party meanwhile crack
ing at them over our shoulders as
fast as they can load. So for a time the run
ning-fght goes fiercely on, making altogether
a very striking tableau. The white, skeleton
tracery of the frozen forest; the long. snaky
line of the pursuing pack shadowy and spec
tral, as if bodied of the mist from which it
energies; the whirling figures of the foremost
wolves amid the tossing spray of snow and
curling clouds of blush smoke; the ceaseless
flash of the busy rifles; the steaming horses,
urged to their speed; the driver, with his
broad, sallow face all ablaze with excitement,
shaking the reins, and hanging forward to
ply the whip; the huge, cumbrous sledge,
rocking and reeling over the snow with its
freight of struggling forms-all this, seen
in the dim, uncertain light of the early
dawn, has a weird and ghostly appear
ance, suggestive of an attack of goblin
highwaymen upon one of those phantom
mail-coaches in which the bagman's uncle
made that marvellous journey which so
much astonished Mr.. Pickwick. But ''the
pace is too stiff to last, as our leader OBJ
serves, with knowing grin. A run at full
speed through half-frozen snow tries the feet
of even full grown wolf too severely to be
continued beyond certain time; and in the
face of stout resistance the beasts inherent
cowardice is sure to come to the sur
face sooner or later. Already three or four
gaunt, shaggy-haired veterans, who have pro
badly made good supper over night, begin
to hang back, as if doubling the wisdom of
Iisking their lives for hypothetical break
asst; the speed of the rest slackens by de-
grees; and at length the whole pack drop of,
as if by tacit agreement, leaving us to pursue
our way unmolested. AS we emerge again
into the open plain, across which the first
beams OF the rising sun are just beginning to
fall, we see the last of our grim followers
Sinking away like belated spectre into the
ghostly shadows of the forest that we have
quilted.