stumbled, and as though sinking down to rest, rolled with all his weight on the wolf, and snatched him by the ears. Nikolay would have stabbed him, but Danilo whispered: “Don’t; we will string him up!” and shifting his position he put his foot on the wolf’s neck. They put a stick in the wolf’s jaws, fastened it, as it were bridling him with a leash, and tied his legs. Danilo swung the wolf twice from side to side. With happy, exhausted faces they tied the great wolf alive on a horse, that started and snorted in alarm at it; and with all the dogs trooping after and whining at the wolf, they brought it to the place where all were to meet. The wolfhounds had captured two cubs, and the greyhounds three. The party met together to show their booty and tell their stories, and every one went to look at the big wolf, which with its heavy- browed head hanging downward and the stick in its teeth, gazed with its great, glassy eyes at the crowd of dogs and men around it. When they touched him, his fastened legs quivered and he looked wildly and yet simply at all of them. Count Ilya Andreitch too went up and touched the wolf.

“Oh, what a great beast!” he said. “He’s an old one, eh?” he asked Danilo, who was standing near him.

“That he is, your excellency,” answered Danilo, hurriedly taking off his cap.

The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and Danilo’s outburst.

“You have a hot temper though, my man,” said the count.

Danilo said nothing, but he shyly smiled a smile of childlike sweetness and amiability.