Who are the figures that Ulrich sees coming through the forest?

In the short story "The Interlopers," Ulrich and Georg see a pack of wolves coming through the forest towards them.

“They hear us! They’ve stopped. Now they see us. They’re running down the hill towards us,” cried Ulrich.
“Who are they?” asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the other would gladly not have seen. “Wolves.”

It is a tragic end to what was, up to that point, becoming an inspirational story. Ulrich and Georg are the patriarchal heads of two families who have been feuding over land for three generations. Land that, as the author states in the story, "was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded," but had somehow come to symbolise a personal feud so bitter that Ulrich, with rifle in hand, is now planning to kill his rival.
As Ulrich and George square up to each with "murder upmost in his mind," a tree falls down on them and traps them underneath. Even then, with blood running into their eyes, all they can think and talk about is whose men will arrive first to kill the other. It is not until Ulrich, out of pity for his injured rival, offers Georg a drink of wine that they begin to reconcile their differences.

How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the marketsquare together. No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a von Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night. And if we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to interfere, no interlopers from outside . . . . You would come and keep the Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some high day at your castle . . . .

As they are on the verge of agreeing on a plan that will bring their whole region back together, the wolves arrive, and the reader can only presume that their pact will die with them.

Georg and Ulrich are lying on the forest floor, pinned down by a falling tree. Mother Nature has reasserted herself over the two feuding men, each of whom believes that his family rightfully owns the forest. Yet adversity appears to have brought Georg and Ulrich closer together, both literally and figuratively, and they reconcile with each other, vowing friendship.
That's all well and good, but friends or not, Georg and Ulrich still need to escape from underneath the fallen tree. It's getting cold and dark, so thoughts turn to calling for help. The two men shout as loudly as they can, hoping that their men will hear them and come to their rescue. At first, it appears that help is soon on its way; Ulrich joyfully exclaims that he can see some figures coming through the wood. It seems like it's only a matter of time before this terrible ordeal is at an end.
Unfortunately for Georg and Ulrich, things aren't quite what they seem, because the figures rapidly coming towards them through the forest aren't men, but wolves.