{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10897/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10897","id":"gutenberg_10897","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10897","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Horror","Horror tales"],"text":"THE WENDIGO\n\nAlgernon Blackwood\n\n1910\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nA considerable number of hunting parties were out that year without\nfinding so much as a fresh trail; for the moose were uncommonly shy, and\nthe various Nimrods returned to the bosoms of their respective families\nwith the best excuses the facts of their imaginations could suggest. Dr.\nCathcart, among others, came back without a trophy; but he brought\ninstead the memory of an experience which he declares was worth all the\nbull moose that had ever been shot. But then Cathcart, of Aberdeen, was\ninterested in other things besides moose--amongst them the vagaries of\nthe human mind. This particular story, however, found no mention in his\nbook on Collective Hallucination for the simple reason (so he confided\nonce to a fellow colleague) that he himself played too intimate a part\nin it to form a competent judgment of the affair as a whole....\n\nBesides himself and his guide, Hank Davis, there was young Simpson, his\nnephew, a divinity student destined for the \"Wee Kirk\" (then on his\nfirst visit to Canadian backwoods), and the latter's guide, D\u00e9fago.\nJoseph D\u00e9fago was a French \"Canuck,\" who had strayed from his native\nProvince of Quebec years before, and had got caught in Rat Portage when\nthe Canadian Pacific Railway was a-building; a man who, in addition to\nhis unparalleled knowledge of wood-craft and bush-lore, could also sing\nthe old _voyageur_ songs and tell a capital hunting yarn into the\nbargain. He was deeply susceptible, moreover, to that singular spell\nwhich the wilderness lays upon certain lonely natures, and he loved the\nwild solitudes with a kind of romantic passion that amounted almost to\nan obsession. The life of the backwoods fascinated him--whence,\ndoubtless, his surpassing efficiency in dealing with their mysteries.\n\nOn this particular expedition he was Hank's choice. Hank knew him and\nswore by him. He also swore at him, \"jest as a pal might,\" and since he\nhad a vocabulary of picturesque, if utterly meaningless, oaths, the\nconversation between the two stalwart and hardy woodsmen was often of a\nrather lively description. This river of expletives, however, Hank\nagreed to dam a little out of respect for his old \"hunting boss,\" Dr.\nCathcart, whom of course he addressed after the fashion of the country\nas \"Doc,\" and also because he understood that young Simpson was already\na \"bit of a parson.\" He had, however, one objection to D\u00e9fago, and one\nonly--which was, that the French Canadian sometimes exhibited what Hank\ndescribed as \"the output of a cursed and dismal mind,\" meaning\napparently that he sometimes was true to type, Latin type, and suffered\nfits of a kind of silent moroseness when nothing could induce him to\nutter speech. D\u00e9fago, that is to say, was imaginative and melancholy.\nAnd, as a rule, it was too long a spell of \"civilization\" that induced\nthe attacks, for a few days of the wilderness invariably cured them.\n\nThis, then, was the party of four that found themselves in camp the last\nweek in October of that \"shy moose year\" 'way up in the wilderness north\nof Rat Portage--a forsaken and desolate country. There was also Punk, an\nIndian, who had accompanied Dr. Cathcart and Hank on their hunting trips\nin previous years, and who acted as cook. His duty was merely to stay in\ncamp, catch fish, and prepare venison steaks and coffee at a few\nminutes' notice. He dressed in the worn-out clothes bequeathed to him by\nformer patrons, and, except for his coarse black hair and dark skin, he\nlooked in these city garments no more like a real redskin than a stage\nNegro looks like a real African. For all that, however, Punk had in him\nstill the instincts of his dying race; his taciturn silence and his\nendurance survived; also his superstition.\n\nThe party round the blazing fire that night were despondent, for a week\nhad passed without a single sign of recent moose discovering itself.\nD\u00e9fago had sung his song and plunged into a story, but Hank, in bad\nhumor, reminded him so often that \"he kep' mussing-up the fac's so, that\nit was 'most all nothin' but a petered-out lie,\" that the Frenchman had\nfinally subsided into a sulky silence which nothing seemed likely to\nbreak. Dr. Cathcart and his nephew were fairly done after an exhausting\nday. Punk was washing up the dishes, grunting to himself under the\nlean-to of branches, where he later also slept. No one troubled to stir\nthe slowly dying fire. Overhead the stars were brilliant in a sky quite\nwintry, and there was so little wind that ice was already forming\nstealthily along the shores of the still lake behind them. The silence\nof the vast listening forest stole forward and enveloped them.\n\nHank broke in suddenly with his nasal voice.\n\n\"I'm in favor of breaking new ground tomorrow, Doc,\" he observed with\nenergy, looking across at his employer. \"We don't stand a dead Dago's\nchance around here.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said Cathcart, always a man of few words. \"Think the idea's\ngood.\"\n\n\"Sure pop, it's good,\" Hank resumed with confidence. \"S'pose, now, you\nand I strike west, up Garden Lake way for a change! None of us ain't\ntouched that quiet bit o' land yet--\"\n\n\"I'm with you.\"\n\n\"And you, D\u00e9fago, take Mr. Simpson along in the small canoe, skip across\nthe lake, portage over into Fifty Island Water, and take a good squint\ndown that thar southern shore. The moose 'yarded' there like hell last\nyear, and for all we know they may be doin' it agin this year jest to\nspite us.\"\n\nD\u00e9fago, keeping his eyes on the fire, said nothing by way of reply. He\nwas still offended, possibly, about his interrupted story.\n\n\"No one's been up that way this year, an' I'll lay my bottom dollar on\n_that!_\" Hank added with emphasis, as though he had a reason for\nknowing. He looked over at his partner sharply. \"Better take the little\nsilk tent and stay away a couple o' nights,\" he concluded, as though the\nmatter were definitely settled. For Hank was recognized as general\norganizer of the hunt, and in charge of the party.\n\nIt was obvious to anyone that D\u00e9fago did not jump at the plan, but his\nsilence seemed to convey something more than ordinary disapproval, and\nacross his sensitive dark face there passed a curious expression like a\nflash of firelight--not so quickly, however, that the three men had not\ntime to catch it.\n\n\"He funked for some reason, _I_ thought,\" Simpson said afterwards in the\ntent he shared with his uncle. Dr. Cathcart made no immediate reply,\nalthough the look had interested him enough at the time for him to make\na mental note of it. The expression had caused him a passing uneasiness\nhe could not quite account for at the moment.\n\nBut Hank, of course, had been the first to notice it, and the odd thing\nwas that instead of becoming explosive or angry over the other's\nreluctance, he at once began to humor him a bit.\n\n\"But there ain't no _speshul_ reason why no one's been up there this\nyear,\" he said with a perceptible hush in his tone; \"not the reason you\nmean, anyway! Las' year it was the fires that kep' folks out, and this\nyear I guess--I guess it jest happened so, that's all!\" His manner was\nclearly meant to be encouraging.\n\nJoseph D\u00e9fago raised his eyes a moment, then dropped them again. A\nbreath of wind stole out of the forest and stirred the embers into a\npassing blaze. Dr. Cathcart again noticed the expression in the guide's\nface, and again he did not like it. But this time the nature of the look\nbetrayed itself. In those eyes, for an instant, he caught the gleam of a\nman scared in his very soul. It disquieted him more than he cared to\nadmit.\n\n\"Bad Indians up that way?\" he asked, with a laugh to ease matters a\nlittle, while Simpson, too sleepy to notice this subtle by-play, moved\noff to bed with a prodigious yawn; \"or--or anything wrong with the\ncountry?\" he added, when his nephew was out of hearing.\n\nHank met his eye with something less than his usual frankness.\n\n\"He's jest skeered,\" he replied good-humouredly. \"Skeered stiff about\nsome ole feery tale! That's all, ain't it, ole pard?\" And he gave D\u00e9fago\na friendly kick on the moccasined foot that lay nearest the fire.\n\nD\u00e9fago looked up quickly, as from an interrupted reverie, a reverie,\nhowever, that had not prevented his seeing all that went on about him.\n\n\"Skeered--_nuthin'!_\" he answered, with a flush of defiance. \"There's\nnuthin' in the Bush that can skeer Joseph D\u00e9fago, and don't you forget\nit!\" And the natural energy with which he spoke made it impossible to\nknow whether he told the whole truth or only a part of it.\n\nHank turned towards the doctor. He was just going to add something when\nhe stopped abruptly and looked round. A sound close behind them in the\ndarkness made all three start. It was old Punk, who had moved up from\nhis lean-to while they talked and now stood there just beyond the circle\nof firelight--listening.\n\n\"'Nother time, Doc!\" Hank whispered, with a wink, \"when the gallery\nain't stepped down into the stalls!\" And, springing to his feet, he\nslapped the Indian on the back and cried noisily, \"Come up t' the fire\nan' warm yer dirty red skin a bit.\" He dragged him towards the blaze and\nthrew more wood on. \"That was a mighty good feed you give us an hour or\ntwo back,\" he continued heartily, as though to set the man's thoughts on\nanother scent, \"and it ain't Christian to let you stand out there\nfreezin' yer ole soul to hell while we're gettin' all good an' toasted!\"\nPunk moved in and warmed his feet, smiling darkly at the other's\nvolubility which he only half understood, but saying nothing. And\npresently Dr. Cathcart, seeing that further conversation was impossible,\nfollowed his nephew's example and moved off to the tent, leaving the\nthree men smoking over the now blazing fire.\n\nIt is not easy to undress in a small tent without waking one's\ncompanion, and Cathcart, hardened and warm-blooded as he was in spite of\nhis fifty odd years, did what Hank would have described as \"considerable\nof his twilight\" in the open. He noticed, during the process, that Punk\nhad meanwhile gone back to his lean-to, and that Hank and D\u00e9fago were\nat it hammer and tongs, or, rather, hammer and anvil, the little French\nCanadian being the anvil. It was all very like the conventional stage\npicture of Western melodrama: the fire lighting up their faces with\npatches of alternate red and black; D\u00e9fago, in slouch hat and moccasins\nin the part of the \"badlands\" villain; Hank, open-faced and hatless,\nwith that reckless fling of his shoulders, the honest and deceived hero;\nand old Punk, eavesdropping in the background, supplying the atmosphere\nof mystery. The doctor smiled as he noticed the details; but at the same\ntime something deep within him--he hardly knew what--shrank a little, as\nthough an almost imperceptible breath of warning had touched the surface\nof his soul and was gone again before he could seize it. Probably it was\ntraceable to that \"scared expression\" he had seen in the eyes of D\u00e9fago;\n\"probably\"--for this hint of fugitive emotion otherwise escaped his\nusually so keen analysis. D\u00e9fago, he was vaguely aware, might cause\ntrouble somehow ...He was not as steady a guide as Hank, for\ninstance ... Further than that he could not get ...\n\nHe watched the men a moment longer before diving into the stuffy tent\nwhere Simpson already slept soundly. Hank, he saw, was swearing like a\nmad African in a New York nigger saloon; but it was the swearing of\n\"affection.\" The ridiculous oaths flew freely now that the cause of\ntheir obstruction was asleep. Presently he put his arm almost tenderly\nupon his comrade's shoulder, and they moved off together into the\nshadows where their tent stood faintly glimmering. Punk, too, a moment\nlater followed their example and disappeared between his odorous\nblankets in the opposite direction.\n\nDr. Cathcart then likewise turned in, weariness and sleep still fighting\nin his mind with an obscure curiosity to know what it was that had\nscared D\u00e9fago about the country up Fifty Island Water way,--wondering,\ntoo, why Punk's presence had prevented the completion of what Hank had\nto say. Then sleep overtook him. He would know tomorrow. Hank would tell\nhim the story while they trudged after the elusive moose.\n\nDeep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously in\nthe jaws of the wilderness. The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass\nbeneath the stars. The cold air pricked. In the draughts of night that\npoured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messages\nfrom distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there lay\nalready the faint, bleak odors of coming winter. White men, with their\ndull scent, might never have divined them; the fragrance of the wood\nfire would have concealed from them these almost electrical hints of\nmoss and bark and hardening swamp a hundred miles away. Even Hank and\nD\u00e9fago, subtly in league with the soul of the woods as they were, would\nprobably have spread their delicate nostrils in vain....\n\nBut an hour later, when all slept like the dead, old Punk crept from his\nblankets and went down to the shore of the lake like a shadow--silently,\nas only Indian blood can move. He raised his head and looked about him.\nThe thick darkness rendered sight of small avail, but, like the animals,\nhe possessed other senses that darkness could not mute. He\nlistened--then sniffed the air. Motionless as a hemlock stem he stood\nthere. After five minutes again he lifted his head and sniffed, and yet\nonce again. A tingling of the wonderful nerves that betrayed itself by\nno outer sign, ran through him as he tasted the keen air. Then, merging\nhis figure into the surrounding blackness in a way that only wild men\nand animals understand, he turned, still moving like a shadow, and went\nstealthily back to his lean-to and his bed.\n\nAnd soon after he slept, the change of wind he had divined stirred\ngently the reflection of the stars within the lake. Rising among the far\nridges of the country beyond Fifty Island Water, it came from the\ndirection in which he had stared, and it passed over the sleeping camp\nwith a faint and sighing murmur through the tops of the big trees that\nwas almost too delicate to be audible. With it, down the desert paths of\nnight, though too faint, too high even for the Indian's hair-like\nnerves, there passed a curious, thin odor, strangely disquieting, an\nodor of something that seemed unfamiliar--utterly unknown.\n\nThe French Canadian and the man of Indian blood each stirred uneasily in\nhis sleep just about this time, though neither of them woke. Then the\nghost of that unforgettably strange odor passed away and was lost among\nthe leagues of tenantless forest beyond.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nIn the morning the camp was astir before the sun. There had been a\nlight fall of snow during the night and the air was sharp. Punk had done\nhis duty betimes, for the odors of coffee and fried bacon reached every\ntent. All were in good spirits.\n\n\"Wind's shifted!\" cried Hank vigorously, watching Simpson and his guide\nalready loading the small canoe. \"It's across the lake--dead right for\nyou fellers. And the snow'll make bully trails! If there's any moose\nmussing around up thar, they'll not get so much as a tail-end scent of\nyou with the wind as it is. Good luck, Monsieur D\u00e9fago!\" he added,\nfacetiously giving the name its French pronunciation for once, \"_bonne\nchance!_\"\n\nD\u00e9fago returned the good wishes, apparently in the best of spirits, the\nsilent mood gone. Before eight o'clock old Punk had the camp to\nhimself, Cathcart and Hank were far along the trail that led westwards,\nwhile the canoe that carried D\u00e9fago and Simpson, with silk tent and grub\nfor two days, was already a dark speck bobbing on the bosom of the lake,\ngoing due east.\n\nThe wintry sharpness of the air was tempered now by a sun that topped\nthe wooded ridges and blazed with a luxurious warmth upon the world of\nlake and forest below; loons flew skimming through the sparkling spray\nthat the wind lifted; divers shook their dripping heads to the sun and\npopped smartly out of sight again; and as far as eye could reach rose\nthe leagues of endless, crowding Bush, desolate in its lonely sweep and\ngrandeur, untrodden by foot of man, and stretching its mighty and\nunbroken carpet right up to the frozen shores of Hudson Bay.\n\nSimpson, who saw it all for the first time as he paddled hard in the\nbows of the dancing canoe, was enchanted by its austere beauty. His\nheart drank in the sense of freedom and great spaces just as his lungs\ndrank in the cool and perfumed wind. Behind him in the stern seat,\nsinging fragments of his native chanties, D\u00e9fago steered the craft of\nbirch bark like a thing of life, answering cheerfully all his\ncompanion's questions. Both were gay and light-hearted. On such\noccasions men lose the superficial, worldly distinctions; they become\nhuman beings working together for a common end. Simpson, the employer,\nand D\u00e9fago the employed, among these primitive forces, were simply--two\nmen, the \"guider\" and the \"guided.\" Superior knowledge, of course,\nassumed control, and the younger man fell without a second thought into\nthe quasi-subordinate position. He never dreamed of objecting when\nD\u00e9fago dropped the \"Mr.,\" and addressed him as \"Say, Simpson,\" or\n\"Simpson, boss,\" which was invariably the case before they reached the\nfarther shore after a stiff paddle of twelve miles against a head wind.\nHe only laughed, and liked it; then ceased to notice it at all.\n\nFor this \"divinity student\" was a young man of parts and character,\nthough as yet, of course, untraveled; and on this trip--the first time\nhe had seen any country but his own and little Switzerland--the huge\nscale of things somewhat bewildered him. It was one thing, he realized,\nto hear about primeval forests, but quite another to see them. While to\ndwell in them and seek acquaintance with their wild life was, again, an\ninitiation that no intelligent man could undergo without a certain\nshifting of personal values hitherto held for permanent and sacred.\n\nSimpson knew the first faint indication of this emotion when he held the\nnew. 303 rifle in his hands and looked along its pair of faultless,\ngleaming barrels. The three days' journey to their headquarters, by lake\nand portage, had carried the process a stage farther. And now that he\nwas about to plunge beyond even the fringe of wilderness where they were\ncamped into the virgin heart of uninhabited regions as vast as Europe\nitself, the true nature of the situation stole upon him with an effect\nof delight and awe that his imagination was fully capable of\nappreciating. It was himself and D\u00e9fago against a multitude--at least,\nagainst a Titan!\n\nThe bleak splendors of these remote and lonely forests rather\noverwhelmed him with the sense of his own littleness. That stern quality\nof the tangled backwoods which can only be described as merciless and\nterrible, rose out of these far blue woods swimming upon the horizon,\nand revealed itself. He understood the silent warning. He realized his\nown utter helplessness. Only D\u00e9fago, as a symbol of a distant\ncivilization where man was master, stood between him and a pitiless\ndeath by exhaustion and starvation.\n\nIt was thrilling to him, therefore, to watch D\u00e9fago turn over the canoe\nupon the shore, pack the paddles carefully underneath, and then proceed\nto \"blaze\" the spruce stems for some distance on either side of an\nalmost invisible trail, with the careless remark thrown in, \"Say,\nSimpson, if anything happens to me, you'll find the canoe all correc' by\nthese marks;--then strike doo west into the sun to hit the home camp\nagin, see?\"\n\nIt was the most natural thing in the world to say, and he said it\nwithout any noticeable inflexion of the voice, only it happened to\nexpress the youth's emotions at the moment with an utterance that was\nsymbolic of the situation and of his own helplessness as a factor in it.\nHe was alone with D\u00e9fago in a primitive world: that was all. The canoe,\nanother symbol of man's ascendancy, was now to be left behind. Those\nsmall yellow patches, made on the trees by the axe, were the only\nindications of its hiding place.\n\nMeanwhile, shouldering the packs between them, each man carrying his own\nrifle, they followed the slender trail over rocks and fallen trunks and\nacross half-frozen swamps; skirting numerous lakes that fairly gemmed\nthe forest, their borders fringed with mist; and towards five o'clock\nfound themselves suddenly on the edge of the woods, looking out across a\nlarge sheet of water in front of them, dotted with pine-clad islands of\nall describable shapes and sizes.\n\n\"Fifty Island Water,\" announced D\u00e9fago wearily, \"and the sun jest goin'\nto dip his bald old head into it!\" he added, with unconscious poetry;\nand immediately they set about pitching camp for the night.\n\nIn a very few minutes, under those skilful hands that never made a\nmovement too much or a movement too little, the silk tent stood taut and\ncozy, the beds of balsam boughs ready laid, and a brisk cooking fire\nburned with the minimum of smoke. While the young Scotchman cleaned the\nfish they had caught trolling behind the canoe, D\u00e9fago \"guessed\" he\nwould \"jest as soon\" take a turn through the Bush for indications of\nmoose. \"_May_ come across a trunk where they bin and rubbed horns,\" he\nsaid, as he moved off, \"or feedin' on the last of the maple leaves\"--and\nhe was gone.\n\nHis small figure melted away like a shadow in the dusk, while Simpson\nnoted with a kind of admiration how easily the forest absorbed him into\nherself. A few steps, it seemed, and he was no longer visible.\n\nYet there was little underbrush hereabouts; the trees stood somewhat\napart, well spaced; and in the clearings grew silver birch and maple,\nspearlike and slender, against the immense stems of spruce and hemlock.\nBut for occasional prostrate monsters, and the boulders of grey rock\nthat thrust uncouth shoulders here and there out of the ground, it might\nwell have been a bit of park in the Old Country. Almost, one might have\nseen in it the hand of man. A little to the right, however, began the\ngreat burnt section, miles in extent, proclaiming its real\ncharacter--_brul\u00e9_, as it is called, where the fires of the previous\nyear had raged for weeks, and the blackened stumps now rose gaunt and\nugly, bereft of branches, like gigantic match heads stuck into the\nground, savage and desolate beyond words. The perfume of charcoal and\nrain-soaked ashes still hung faintly about it.\n\nThe dusk rapidly deepened; the glades grew dark; the crackling of the\nfire and the wash of little waves along the rocky lake shore were the\nonly sounds audible. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in all that\nvast world of branches nothing stirred. Any moment, it seemed, the\nwoodland gods, who are to be worshipped in silence and loneliness, might\nstretch their mighty and terrific outlines among the trees. In front,\nthrough doorways pillared by huge straight stems, lay the stretch of\nFifty Island Water, a crescent-shaped lake some fifteen miles from tip\nto tip, and perhaps five miles across where they were camped. A sky of\nrose and saffron, more clear than any atmosphere Simpson had ever\nknown, still dropped its pale streaming fires across the waves, where\nthe islands--a hundred, surely, rather than fifty--floated like the\nfairy barques of some enchanted fleet. Fringed with pines, whose crests\nfingered most delicately the sky, they almost seemed to move upwards as\nthe light faded--about to weigh anchor and navigate the pathways of the\nheavens instead of the currents of their native and desolate lake.\n\nAnd strips of colored cloud, like flaunting pennons, signaled their\ndeparture to the stars....\n\nThe beauty of the scene was strangely uplifting. Simpson smoked the fish\nand burnt his fingers into the bargain in his efforts to enjoy it and at\nthe same time tend the frying pan and the fire. Yet, ever at the back of\nhis thoughts, lay that other aspect of the wilderness: the indifference\nto human life, the merciless spirit of desolation which took no note of\nman. The sense of his utter loneliness, now that even D\u00e9fago had gone,\ncame close as he looked about him and listened for the sound of his\ncompanion's returning footsteps.\n\nThere was pleasure in the sensation, yet with it a perfectly\ncomprehensible alarm. And instinctively the thought stirred in him:\n\"What should I--_could_ I, do--if anything happened and he did not come\nback--?\"\n\nThey enjoyed their well-earned supper, eating untold quantities of fish,\nand drinking unmilked tea strong enough to kill men who had not covered\nthirty miles of hard \"going,\" eating little on the way. And when it was\nover, they smoked and told stories round the blazing fire, laughing,\nstretching weary limbs, and discussing plans for the morrow. D\u00e9fago was\nin excellent spirits, though disappointed at having no signs of moose to\nreport. But it was dark and he had not gone far. The _brul\u00e9_, too, was\nbad. His clothes and hands were smeared with charcoal. Simpson, watching\nhim, realized with renewed vividness their position--alone together in\nthe wilderness.\n\n\"D\u00e9fago,\" he said presently, \"these woods, you know, are a bit too big\nto feel quite at home in--to feel comfortable in, I mean!... Eh?\" He\nmerely gave expression to the mood of the moment; he was hardly prepared\nfor the earnestness, the solemnity even, with which the guide took him\nup.\n\n\"You've hit it right, Simpson, boss,\" he replied, fixing his searching\nbrown eyes on his face, \"and that's the truth, sure. There's no end to\n'em--no end at all.\" Then he added in a lowered tone as if to himself,\n\"There's lots found out _that_, and gone plumb to pieces!\"\n\nBut the man's gravity of manner was not quite to the other's liking; it\nwas a little too suggestive for this scenery and setting; he was sorry\nhe had broached the subject. He remembered suddenly how his uncle had\ntold him that men were sometimes stricken with a strange fever of the\nwilderness, when the seduction of the uninhabited wastes caught them so\nfiercely that they went forth, half fascinated, half deluded, to their\ndeath. And he had a shrewd idea that his companion held something in\nsympathy with that queer type. He led the conversation on to other\ntopics, on to Hank and the doctor, for instance, and the natural rivalry\nas to who should get the first sight of moose.\n\n\"If they went doo west,\" observed D\u00e9fago carelessly, \"there's sixty\nmiles between us now--with ole Punk at halfway house eatin' himself full\nto bustin' with fish and coffee.\" They laughed together over the\npicture. But the casual mention of those sixty miles again made Simpson\nrealize the prodigious scale of this land where they hunted; sixty miles\nwas a mere step; two hundred little more than a step. Stories of lost\nhunters rose persistently before his memory. The passion and mystery of\nhomeless and wandering men, seduced by the beauty of great forests,\nswept his soul in a way too vivid to be quite pleasant. He wondered\nvaguely whether it was the mood of his companion that invited the\nunwelcome suggestion with such persistence.\n\n\"Sing us a song, D\u00e9fago, if you're not too tired,\" he asked; \"one of\nthose old _voyageur_ songs you sang the other night.\" He handed his\ntobacco pouch to the guide and then filled his own pipe, while the\nCanadian, nothing loth, sent his light voice across the lake in one of\nthose plaintive, almost melancholy chanties with which lumbermen and\ntrappers lessen the burden of their labor. There was an appealing and\nromantic flavor about it, something that recalled the atmosphere of the\nold pioneer days when Indians and wilderness were leagued together,\nbattles frequent, and the Old Country farther off than it is today. The\nsound traveled pleasantly over the water, but the forest at their backs\nseemed to swallow it down with a single gulp that permitted neither echo\nnor resonance.\n\nIt was in the middle of the third verse that Simpson noticed something\nunusual--something that brought his thoughts back with a rush from\nfaraway scenes. A curious change had come into the man's voice. Even\nbefore he knew what it was, uneasiness caught him, and looking up\nquickly, he saw that D\u00e9fago, though still singing, was peering about him\ninto the Bush, as though he heard or saw something. His voice grew\nfainter--dropped to a hush--then ceased altogether. The same instant,\nwith a movement amazingly alert, he started to his feet and stood\nupright--_sniffing the air_. Like a dog scenting game, he drew the air\ninto his nostrils in short, sharp breaths, turning quickly as he did so\nin all directions, and finally \"pointing\" down the lake shore,\neastwards. It was a performance unpleasantly suggestive and at the same\ntime singularly dramatic. Simpson's heart fluttered disagreeably as he\nwatched it.\n\n\"Lord, man! How you made me jump!\" he exclaimed, on his feet beside him\nthe same instant, and peering over his shoulder into the sea of\ndarkness. \"What's up? Are you frightened--?\"\n\nEven before the question was out of his mouth he knew it was foolish,\nfor any man with a pair of eyes in his head could see that the Canadian\nhad turned white down to his very gills. Not even sunburn and the glare\nof the fire could hide that.\n\nThe student felt himself trembling a little, weakish in the knees.\n\"What's up?\" he repeated quickly. \"D'you smell moose? Or anything queer,\nanything--wrong?\" He lowered his voice instinctively.\n\nThe forest pressed round them with its encircling wall; the nearer tree\nstems gleamed like bronze in the firelight; beyond that--blackness, and,\nso far as he could tell, a silence of death. Just behind them a passing\npuff of wind lifted a single leaf, looked at it, then laid it softly\ndown again without disturbing the rest of the covey. It seemed as if a\nmillion invisible causes had combined just to produce that single\nvisible effect. _Other_ life pulsed about them--and was gone.\n\nD\u00e9fago turned abruptly; the livid hue of his face had turned to a dirty\ngrey.\n\n\"I never said I heered--or smelt--nuthin',\" he said slowly and\nemphatically, in an oddly altered voice that conveyed somehow a touch of\ndefiance. \"I was only--takin' a look round--so to speak. It's always a\nmistake to be too previous with yer questions.\" Then he added suddenly\nwith obvious effort, in his more natural voice, \"Have you got the\nmatches, Boss Simpson?\" and proceeded to light the pipe he had half\nfilled just before he began to sing.\n\nWithout speaking another word they sat down again by the fire. D\u00e9fago\nchanging his side so that he could face the direction the wind came\nfrom. For even a tenderfoot could tell that. D\u00e9fago changed his position\nin order to hear and smell--all there was to be heard and smelt. And,\nsince he now faced the lake with his back to the trees it was evidently\nnothing in the forest that had sent so strange and sudden a warning to\nhis marvelously trained nerves.\n\n\"Guess now I don't feel like singing any,\" he explained presently of his\nown accord. \"That song kinder brings back memories that's troublesome to\nme; I never oughter've begun it. It sets me on t' imagining things,\nsee?\"\n\nClearly the man was still fighting with some profoundly moving emotion.\nHe wished to excuse himself in the eyes of the other. But the\nexplanation, in that it was only a part of the truth, was a lie, and he\nknew perfectly well that Simpson was not deceived by it. For nothing\ncould explain away the livid terror that had dropped over his face while\nhe stood there sniffing the air. And nothing--no amount of blazing fire,\nor chatting on ordinary subjects--could make that camp exactly as it had\nbeen before. The shadow of an unknown horror, naked if unguessed, that\nhad flashed for an instant in the face and gestures of the guide, had\nalso communicated itself, vaguely and therefore more potently, to his\ncompanion. The guide's visible efforts to dissemble the truth only made\nthings worse. Moreover, to add to the younger man's uneasiness, was the\ndifficulty, nay, the impossibility he felt of asking questions, and also\nhis complete ignorance as to the cause ...Indians, wild animals, forest\nfires--all these, he knew, were wholly out of the question. His\nimagination searched vigorously, but in vain....\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet, somehow or other, after another long spell of smoking, talking and\nroasting themselves before the great fire, the shadow that had so\nsuddenly invaded their peaceful camp began to shift. Perhaps D\u00e9fago's\nefforts, or the return of his quiet and normal attitude accomplished\nthis; perhaps Simpson himself had exaggerated the affair out of all\nproportion to the truth; or possibly the vigorous air of the wilderness\nbrought its own powers of healing. Whatever the cause, the feeling of\nimmediate horror seemed to have passed away as mysteriously as it had\ncome, for nothing occurred to feed it. Simpson began to feel that he had\npermitted himself the unreasoning terror of a child. He put it down\npartly to a certain subconscious excitement that this wild and immense\nscenery generated in his blood, partly to the spell of solitude, and\npartly to overfatigue. That pallor in the guide's face was, of course,\nuncommonly hard to explain, yet it _might_ have been due in some way to\nan effect of firelight, or his own imagination ...He gave it the benefit\nof the doubt; he was Scotch.\n\nWhen a somewhat unordinary emotion has disappeared, the mind always\nfinds a dozen ways of explaining away its causes ...Simpson lit a last\npipe and tried to laugh to himself. On getting home to Scotland it would\nmake quite a good story. He did not realize that this laughter was a\nsign that terror still lurked in the recesses of his soul--that, in\nfact, it was merely one of the conventional signs by which a man,\nseriously alarmed, tries to persuade himself that he is _not_ so.\n\nD\u00e9fago, however, heard that low laughter and looked up with surprise on\nhis face. The two men stood, side by side, kicking the embers about\nbefore going to bed. It was ten o'clock--a late hour for hunters to be\nstill awake.\n\n\"What's ticklin' yer?\" he asked in his ordinary tone, yet gravely.\n\n\"I--I was thinking of our little toy woods at home, just at that\nmoment,\" stammered Simpson, coming back to what really dominated his\nmind, and startled by the question, \"and comparing them to--to all\nthis,\" and he swept his arm round to indicate the Bush.\n\nA pause followed in which neither of them said anything.\n\n\"All the same I wouldn't laugh about it, if I was you,\" D\u00e9fago added,\nlooking over Simpson's shoulder into the shadows. \"There's places in\nthere nobody won't never see into--nobody knows what lives in there\neither.\"\n\n\"Too big--too far off?\" The suggestion in the guide's manner was immense\nand horrible.\n\nD\u00e9fago nodded. The expression on his face was dark. He, too, felt\nuneasy. The younger man understood that in a _hinterland_ of this size\nthere might well be depths of wood that would never in the life of the\nworld be known or trodden. The thought was not exactly the sort he\nwelcomed. In a loud voice, cheerfully, he suggested that it was time for\nbed. But the guide lingered, tinkering with the fire, arranging the\nstones needlessly, doing a dozen things that did not really need doing.\nEvidently there was something he wanted to say, yet found it difficult\nto \"get at.\"\n\n\"Say, you, Boss Simpson,\" he began suddenly, as the last shower of\nsparks went up into the air, \"you don't--smell nothing, do you--nothing\npertickler, I mean?\" The commonplace question, Simpson realized, veiled\na dreadfully serious thought in his mind. A shiver ran down his back.\n\n\"Nothing but burning wood,\" he replied firmly, kicking again at the\nembers. The sound of his own foot made him start.\n\n\"And all the evenin' you ain't smelt--nothing?\" persisted the guide,\npeering at him through the gloom; \"nothing extrordiny, and different to\nanything else you ever smelt before?\"\n\n\"No, no, man; nothing at all!\" he replied aggressively, half angrily.\n\nD\u00e9fago's face cleared. \"That's good!\" he exclaimed with evident relief.\n\"That's good to hear.\"\n\n\"Have _you?_\" asked Simpson sharply, and the same instant regretted the\nquestion.\n\nThe Canadian came closer in the darkness. He shook his head. \"I guess\nnot,\" he said, though without overwhelming conviction. \"It must've been\njust that song of mine that did it. It's the song they sing in lumber\ncamps and godforsaken places like that, when they're skeered the\nWendigo's somewhere around, doin' a bit of swift traveling.--\"\n\n\"And what's the Wendigo, pray?\" Simpson asked quickly, irritated because\nagain he could not prevent that sudden shiver of the nerves. He knew\nthat he was close upon the man's terror and the cause of it. Yet a\nrushing passionate curiosity overcame his better judgment, and his fear.\n\nD\u00e9fago turned swiftly and looked at him as though he were suddenly about\nto shriek. His eyes shone, but his mouth was wide open. Yet all he said,\nor whispered rather, for his voice sank very low, was: \"It's\nnuthin'--nuthin' but what those lousy fellers believe when they've bin\nhittin' the bottle too long--a sort of great animal that lives up\nyonder,\" he jerked his head northwards, \"quick as lightning in its\ntracks, an' bigger'n anything else in the Bush, an' ain't supposed to be\nvery good to look at--that's all!\"\n\n\"A backwoods superstition--\" began Simpson, moving hastily toward the\ntent in order to shake off the hand of the guide that clutched his arm.\n\"Come, come, hurry up for God's sake, and get the lantern going! It's\ntime we were in bed and asleep if we're going to be up with the sun\ntomorrow....\"\n\nThe guide was close on his heels. \"I'm coming,\" he answered out of the\ndarkness, \"I'm coming.\" And after a slight delay he appeared with the\nlantern and hung it from a nail in the front pole of the tent. The\nshadows of a hundred trees shifted their places quickly as he did so,\nand when he stumbled over the rope, diving swiftly inside, the whole\ntent trembled as though a gust of wind struck it.\n\nThe two men lay down, without undressing, upon their beds of soft balsam\nboughs, cunningly arranged. Inside, all was warm and cozy, but outside\nthe world of crowding trees pressed close about them, marshalling their\nmillion shadows, and smothering the little tent that stood there like a\nwee white shell facing the ocean of tremendous forest.\n\nBetween the two lonely figures within, however, there pressed another\nshadow that was _not_ a shadow from the night. It was the Shadow cast by\nthe strange Fear, never wholly exorcised, that had leaped suddenly upon\nD\u00e9fago in the middle of his singing. And Simpson, as he lay there,\nwatching the darkness through the open flap of the tent, ready to plunge\ninto the fragrant abyss of sleep, knew first that unique and profound\nstillness of a primeval forest when no wind stirs ... and when the night\nhas weight and substance that enters into the soul to bind a veil about\nit.... Then sleep took him....\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThus, it seemed to him, at least. Yet it was true that the lap of the\nwater, just beyond the tent door, still beat time with his lessening\npulses when he realized that he was lying with his eyes open and that\nanother sound had recently introduced itself with cunning softness\nbetween the splash and murmur of the little waves.\n\nAnd, long before he understood what this sound was, it had stirred in\nhim the centers of pity and alarm. He listened intently, though at first\nin vain, for the running blood beat all its drums too noisily in his\nears. Did it come, he wondered, from the lake, or from the woods?...\n\nThen, suddenly, with a rush and a flutter of the heart, he knew that it\nwas close beside him in the tent; and, when he turned over for a better\nhearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away. It was a\nsound of weeping; D\u00e9fago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the\ndarkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed\nagainst his mouth to stifle it.\n\nAnd his first feeling, before he could think or reflect, was the rush of\na poignant and searching tenderness. This intimate, human sound, heard\namid the desolation about them, woke pity. It was so incongruous, so\npitifully incongruous--and so vain! Tears--in this vast and cruel\nwilderness: of what avail? He thought of a little child crying in\nmid-Atlantic.... Then, of course, with fuller realization, and the\nmemory of what had gone before, came the descent of the terror upon him,\nand his blood ran cold.\n\n\"D\u00e9fago,\" he whispered quickly, \"what's the matter?\" He tried to make\nhis voice very gentle. \"Are you in pain--unhappy--?\" There was no reply,\nbut the sounds ceased abruptly. He stretched his hand out and touched\nhim. The body did not stir.\n\n\"Are you awake?\" for it occurred to him that the man was crying in his\nsleep. \"Are you cold?\" He noticed that his feet, which were uncovered,\nprojected beyond the mouth of the tent. He spread an extra fold of his\nown blankets over them. The guide had slipped down in his bed, and the\nbranches seemed to have been dragged with him. He was afraid to pull the\nbody back again, for fear of waking him.\n\nOne or two tentative questions he ventured softly, but though he waited\nfor several minutes there came no reply, nor any sign of movement.\nPresently he heard his regular and quiet breathing, and putting his hand\nagain gently on the breast, felt the steady rise and fall beneath.\n\n\"Let me know if anything's wrong,\" he whispered, \"or if I can do\nanything. Wake me at once if you feel--queer.\"\n\nHe hardly knew what to say. He lay down again, thinking and wondering\nwhat it all meant. D\u00e9fago, of course, had been crying in his sleep. Some\ndream or other had afflicted him. Yet never in his life would he forget\nthat pitiful sound of sobbing, and the feeling that the whole awful\nwilderness of woods listened....\n\nHis own mind busied itself for a long time with the recent events, of\nwhich _this_ took its mysterious place as one, and though his reason\nsuccessfully argued away all unwelcome suggestions, a sensation of\nuneasiness remained, resisting ejection, very deep-seated--peculiar\nbeyond ordinary.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nBut sleep, in the long run, proves greater than all emotions. His\nthoughts soon wandered again; he lay there, warm as toast, exceedingly\nweary; the night soothed and comforted, blunting the edges of memory and\nalarm. Half an hour later he was oblivious of everything in the outer\nworld about him.\n\nYet sleep, in this case, was his great enemy, concealing all approaches,\nsmothering the warning of his nerves.\n\nAs, sometimes, in a nightmare events crowd upon each other's heels with\na conviction of dreadfulest reality, yet some inconsistent detail\naccuses the whole display of incompleteness and disguise, so the events\nthat now followed, though they actually happened, persuaded the mind\nsomehow that the detail which could explain them had been overlooked in\nthe confusion, and that therefore they were but partly true, the rest\ndelusion. At the back of the sleeper's mind something remains awake,\nready to let slip the judgment. \"All this is not _quite_ real; when you\nwake up you'll understand.\"\n\nAnd thus, in a way, it was with Simpson. The events, not wholly\ninexplicable or incredible in themselves, yet remain for the man who saw\nand heard them a sequence of separate facts of cold horror, because the\nlittle piece that might have made the puzzle clear lay concealed or\noverlooked.\n\nSo far as he can recall, it was a violent movement, running downwards\nthrough the tent towards the door, that first woke him and made him\naware that his companion was sitting bolt upright beside him--quivering.\nHours must have passed, for it was the pale gleam of the dawn that\nrevealed his outline against the canvas. This time the man was not\ncrying; he was quaking like a leaf; the trembling he felt plainly\nthrough the blankets down the entire length of his own body. D\u00e9fago had\nhuddled down against him for protection, shrinking away from something\nthat apparently concealed itself near the door flaps of the little tent.\n\nSimpson thereupon called out in a loud voice some question or other--in\nthe first bewilderment of waking he does not remember exactly what--and\nthe man made no reply. The atmosphere and feeling of true nightmare lay\nhorribly about him, making movement and speech both difficult. At first,\nindeed, he was not sure where he was--whether in one of the earlier\ncamps, or at home in his bed at Aberdeen. The sense of confusion was\nvery troubling.\n\nAnd next--almost simultaneous with his waking, it seemed--the profound\nstillness of the dawn outside was shattered by a most uncommon sound. It\ncame without warning, or audible approach; and it was unspeakably\ndreadful. It was a voice, Simpson declares, possibly a human voice;\nhoarse yet plaintive--a soft, roaring voice close outside the tent,\noverhead rather than upon the ground, of immense volume, while in some\nstrange way most penetratingly and seductively sweet. It rang out, too,\nin three separate and distinct notes, or cries, that bore in some odd\nfashion a resemblance, farfetched yet recognizable, to the name of the\nguide: \"_D\u00e9-fa-go!_\"\n\nThe student admits he is unable to describe it quite intelligently, for\nit was unlike any sound he had ever heard in his life, and combined a\nblending of such contrary qualities. \"A sort of windy, crying voice,\" he\ncalls it, \"as of something lonely and untamed, wild and of abominable\npower....\"\n\nAnd, even before it ceased, dropping back into the great gulfs of\nsilence, the guide beside him had sprung to his feet with an answering\nthough unintelligible cry. He blundered against the tent pole with\nviolence, shaking the whole structure, spreading his arms out\nfrantically for more room, and kicking his legs impetuously free of the\nclinging blankets. For a second, perhaps two, he stood upright by the\ndoor, his outline dark against the pallor of the dawn; then, with a\nfurious, rushing speed, before his companion could move a hand to stop\nhim, he shot with a plunge through the flaps of canvas--and was gone.\nAnd as he went--so astonishingly fast that the voice could actually be\nheard dying in the distance--he called aloud in tones of anguished\nterror that at the same time held something strangely like the frenzied\nexultation of delight--\n\n\"Oh! oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet of fire! Oh! oh! This height\nand fiery speed!\"\n\nAnd then the distance quickly buried it, and the deep silence of very\nearly morning descended upon the forest as before.\n\nIt had all come about with such rapidity that, but for the evidence of\nthe empty bed beside him, Simpson could almost have believed it to have\nbeen the memory of a nightmare carried over from sleep. He still felt\nthe warm pressure of that vanished body against his side; there lay the\ntwisted blankets in a heap; the very tent yet trembled with the\nvehemence of the impetuous departure. The strange words rang in his\nears, as though he still heard them in the distance--wild language of a\nsuddenly stricken mind. Moreover, it was not only the senses of sight\nand hearing that reported uncommon things to his brain, for even while\nthe man cried and ran, he had become aware that a strange perfume, faint\nyet pungent, pervaded the interior of the tent. And it was at this\npoint, it seems, brought to himself by the consciousness that his\nnostrils were taking this distressing odor down into his throat, that he\nfound his courage, sprang quickly to his feet--and went out.\n\nThe grey light of dawn that dropped, cold and glimmering, between the\ntrees revealed the scene tolerably well. There stood the tent behind\nhim, soaked with dew; the dark ashes of the fire, still warm; the lake,\nwhite beneath a coating of mist, the islands rising darkly out of it\nlike objects packed in wool; and patches of snow beyond among the\nclearer spaces of the Bush--everything cold, still, waiting for the sun.\nBut nowhere a sign of the vanished guide--still, doubtless, flying at\nfrantic speed through the frozen woods. There was not even the sound of\ndisappearing footsteps, nor the echoes of the dying voice. He had\ngone--utterly.\n\nThere was nothing; nothing but the sense of his recent presence, so\nstrongly left behind about the camp; _and_--this penetrating,\nall-pervading odor.\n\nAnd even this was now rapidly disappearing in its turn. In spite of his\nexceeding mental perturbation, Simpson struggled hard to detect its\nnature, and define it, but the ascertaining of an elusive scent, not\nrecognized subconsciously and at once, is a very subtle operation of\nthe mind. And he failed. It was gone before he could properly seize or\nname it. Approximate description, even, seems to have been difficult,\nfor it was unlike any smell he knew. Acrid rather, not unlike the odor\nof a lion, he thinks, yet softer and not wholly unpleasing, with\nsomething almost sweet in it that reminded him of the scent of decaying\ngarden leaves, earth, and the myriad, nameless perfumes that make up the\nodor of a big forest. Yet the \"odor of lions\" is the phrase with which\nhe usually sums it all up.\n\nThen--it was wholly gone, and he found himself standing by the ashes of\nthe fire in a state of amazement and stupid terror that left him the\nhelpless prey of anything that chose to happen. Had a muskrat poked its\npointed muzzle over a rock, or a squirrel scuttled in that instant down\nthe bark of a tree, he would most likely have collapsed without more ado\nand fainted. For he felt about the whole affair the touch somewhere of a\ngreat Outer Horror ... and his scattered powers had not as yet had time\nto collect themselves into a definite attitude of fighting self-control.\n\nNothing did happen, however. A great kiss of wind ran softly through the\nawakening forest, and a few maple leaves here and there rustled\ntremblingly to earth. The sky seemed to grow suddenly much lighter.\nSimpson felt the cool air upon his cheek and uncovered head; realized\nthat he was shivering with the cold; and, making a great effort,\nrealized next that he was alone in the Bush--_and_ that he was called\nupon to take immediate steps to find and succor his vanished companion.\n\nMake an effort, accordingly, he did, though an ill-calculated and futile\none. With that wilderness of trees about him, the sheet of water cutting\nhim off behind, and the horror of that wild cry in his blood, he did\nwhat any other inexperienced man would have done in similar\nbewilderment: he ran about, without any sense of direction, like a\nfrantic child, and called loudly without ceasing the name of the guide:\n\n\"D\u00e9fago! D\u00e9fago! D\u00e9fago!\" he yelled, and the trees gave him back the\nname as often as he shouted, only a little softened--\"D\u00e9fago! D\u00e9fago!\nD\u00e9fago!\"\n\nHe followed the trail that lay a short distance across the patches of\nsnow, and then lost it again where the trees grew too thickly for snow\nto lie. He shouted till he was hoarse, and till the sound of his own\nvoice in all that unanswering and listening world began to frighten him.\nHis confusion increased in direct ratio to the violence of his efforts.\nHis distress became formidably acute, till at length his exertions\ndefeated their own object, and from sheer exhaustion he headed back to\nthe camp again. It remains a wonder that he ever found his way. It was\nwith great difficulty, and only after numberless false clues, that he at\nlast saw the white tent between the trees, and so reached safety.\n\nExhaustion then applied its own remedy, and he grew calmer. He made the\nfire and breakfasted. Hot coffee and bacon put a little sense and\njudgment into him again, and he realized that he had been behaving like\na boy. He now made another, and more successful attempt to face the\nsituation collectedly, and, a nature naturally plucky coming to his\nassistance, he decided that he must first make as thorough a search as\npossible, failing success in which, he must find his way into the home\ncamp as best he could and bring help.\n\nAnd this was what he did. Taking food, matches and rifle with him, and a\nsmall axe to blaze the trees against his return journey, he set forth.\nIt was eight o'clock when he started, the sun shining over the tops of\nthe trees in a sky without clouds. Pinned to a stake by the fire he left\na note in case D\u00e9fago returned while he was away.\n\nThis time, according to a careful plan, he took a new direction,\nintending to make a wide sweep that must sooner or later cut into\nindications of the guide's trail; and, before he had gone a quarter of a\nmile he came across the tracks of a large animal in the snow, and beside\nit the light and smaller tracks of what were beyond question human\nfeet--the feet of D\u00e9fago. The relief he at once experienced was natural,\nthough brief; for at first sight he saw in these tracks a simple\nexplanation of the whole matter: these big marks had surely been left by\na bull moose that, wind against it, had blundered upon the camp, and\nuttered its singular cry of warning and alarm the moment its mistake was\napparent. D\u00e9fago, in whom the hunting instinct was developed to the\npoint of uncanny perfection, had scented the brute coming down the wind\nhours before. His excitement and disappearance were due, of course,\nto--to his--\n\nThen the impossible explanation at which he grasped faded, as common\nsense showed him mercilessly that none of this was true. No guide, much\nless a guide like D\u00e9fago, could have acted in so irrational a way, going\noff even without his rifle ...! The whole affair demanded a far more\ncomplicated elucidation, when he remembered the details of it all--the\ncry of terror, the amazing language, the grey face of horror when his\nnostrils first caught the new odor; that muffled sobbing in the\ndarkness, and--for this, too, now came back to him dimly--the man's\noriginal aversion for this particular bit of country....\n\nBesides, now that he examined them closer, these were not the tracks of\na bull moose at all! Hank had explained to him the outline of a bull's\nhoofs, of a cow's or calf's, too, for that matter; he had drawn them\nclearly on a strip of birch bark. And these were wholly different. They\nwere big, round, ample, and with no pointed outline as of sharp hoofs.\nHe wondered for a moment whether bear tracks were like that. There was\nno other animal he could think of, for caribou did not come so far\nsouth at this season, and, even if they did, would leave hoof marks.\n\nThey were ominous signs--these mysterious writings left in the snow by\nthe unknown creature that had lured a human being away from safety--and\nwhen he coupled them in his imagination with that haunting sound that\nbroke the stillness of the dawn, a momentary dizziness shook his mind,\ndistressing him again beyond belief. He felt the _threatening_ aspect of\nit all. And, stooping down to examine the marks more closely, he caught\na faint whiff of that sweet yet pungent odor that made him instantly\nstraighten up again, fighting a sensation almost of nausea.\n\nThen his memory played him another evil trick. He suddenly recalled\nthose uncovered feet projecting beyond the edge of the tent, and the\nbody's appearance of having been dragged towards the opening; the man's\nshrinking from something by the door when he woke later. The details now\nbeat against his trembling mind with concerted attack. They seemed to\ngather in those deep spaces of the silent forest about him, where the\nhost of trees stood waiting, listening, watching to see what he would\ndo. The woods were closing round him.\n\nWith the persistence of true pluck, however, Simpson went forward,\nfollowing the tracks as best he could, smothering these ugly emotions\nthat sought to weaken his will. He blazed innumerable trees as he went,\never fearful of being unable to find the way back, and calling aloud at\nintervals of a few seconds the name of the guide. The dull tapping of\nthe axe upon the massive trunks, and the unnatural accents of his own\nvoice became at length sounds that he even dreaded to make, dreaded to\nhear. For they drew attention without ceasing to his presence and exact\nwhereabouts, and if it were really the case that something was hunting\nhimself down in the same way that he was hunting down another--\n\nWith a strong effort, he crushed the thought out the instant it rose.\nIt was the beginning, he realized, of a bewilderment utterly diabolical\nin kind that would speedily destroy him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlthough the snow was not continuous, lying merely in shallow flurries\nover the more open spaces, he found no difficulty in following the\ntracks for the first few miles. They went straight as a ruled line\nwherever the trees permitted. The stride soon began to increase in\nlength, till it finally assumed proportions that seemed absolutely\nimpossible for any ordinary animal to have made. Like huge flying leaps\nthey became. One of these he measured, and though he knew that \"stretch\"\nof eighteen feet must be somehow wrong, he was at a complete loss to\nunderstand why he found no signs on the snow between the extreme points.\nBut what perplexed him even more, making him feel his vision had gone\nutterly awry, was that D\u00e9fago's stride increased in the same manner, and\nfinally covered the same incredible distances. It looked as if the great\nbeast had lifted him with it and carried him across these astonishing\nintervals. Simpson, who was much longer in the limb, found that he could\nnot compass even half the stretch by taking a running jump.\n\nAnd the sight of these huge tracks, running side by side, silent\nevidence of a dreadful journey in which terror or madness had urged to\nimpossible results, was profoundly moving. It shocked him in the secret\ndepths of his soul. It was the most horrible thing his eyes had ever\nlooked upon. He began to follow them mechanically, absentmindedly\nalmost, ever peering over his shoulder to see if he, too, were being\nfollowed by something with a gigantic tread.... And soon it came about\nthat he no longer quite realized what it was they signified--these\nimpressions left upon the snow by something nameless and untamed, always\naccompanied by the footmarks of the little French Canadian, his guide,\nhis comrade, the man who had shared his tent a few hours before,\nchatting, laughing, even singing by his side....\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nFor a man of his years and inexperience, only a canny Scot, perhaps,\ngrounded in common sense and established in logic, could have preserved\neven that measure of balance that this youth somehow or other did manage\nto preserve through the whole adventure. Otherwise, two things he\npresently noticed, while forging pluckily ahead, must have sent him\nheadlong back to the comparative safety of his tent, instead of only\nmaking his hands close more tightly upon the rifle stock, while his\nheart, trained for the Wee Kirk, sent a wordless prayer winging its way\nto heaven. Both tracks, he saw, had undergone a change, and this change,\nso far as it concerned the footsteps of the man, was in some\nundecipherable manner--appalling.\n\nIt was in the bigger tracks he first noticed this, and for a long time\nhe could not quite believe his eyes. Was it the blown leaves that\nproduced odd effects of light and shade, or that the dry snow, drifting\nlike finely ground rice about the edges, cast shadows and high lights?\nOr was it actually the fact that the great marks had become faintly\ncolored? For round about the deep, plunging holes of the animal there\nnow appeared a mysterious, reddish tinge that was more like an effect of\nlight than of anything that dyed the substance of the snow itself. Every\nmark had it, and had it increasingly--this indistinct fiery tinge that\npainted a new touch of ghastliness into the picture.\n\nBut when, wholly unable to explain or to credit it, he turned his\nattention to the other tracks to discover if they, too, bore similar\nwitness, he noticed that these had meanwhile undergone a change that was\ninfinitely worse, and charged with far more horrible suggestion. For, in\nthe last hundred yards or so, he saw that they had grown gradually into\nthe semblance of the parent tread. Imperceptibly the change had come\nabout, yet unmistakably. It was hard to see where the change first\nbegan. The result, however, was beyond question. Smaller, neater, more\ncleanly modeled, they formed now an exact and careful duplicate of the\nlarger tracks beside them. The feet that produced them had, therefore,\nalso changed. And something in his mind reared up with loathing and with\nterror as he saw it.\n\nSimpson, for the first time, hesitated; then, ashamed of his alarm and\nindecision, took a few hurried steps ahead; the next instant stopped\ndead in his tracks. Immediately in front of him all signs of the trail\nceased; both tracks came to an abrupt end. On all sides, for a hundred\nyards and more, he searched in vain for the least indication of their\ncontinuance. There was--nothing.\n\nThe trees were very thick just there, big trees all of them, spruce,\ncedar, hemlock; there was no underbrush. He stood, looking about him,\nall distraught; bereft of any power of judgment. Then he set to work to\nsearch again, and again, and yet again, but always with the same result:\n_nothing_. The feet that printed the surface of the snow thus far had\nnow, apparently, left the ground!\n\nAnd it was in that moment of distress and confusion that the whip of\nterror laid its most nicely calculated lash about his heart. It dropped\nwith deadly effect upon the sorest spot of all, completely unnerving\nhim. He had been secretly dreading all the time that it would come--and\ncome it did.\n\nFar overhead, muted by great height and distance, strangely thinned and\nwailing, he heard the crying voice of D\u00e9fago, the guide.\n\nThe sound dropped upon him out of that still, wintry sky with an effect\nof dismay and terror unsurpassed. The rifle fell to his feet. He stood\nmotionless an instant, listening as it were with his whole body, then\nstaggered back against the nearest tree for support, disorganized\nhopelessly in mind and spirit. To him, in that moment, it seemed the\nmost shattering and dislocating experience he had ever known, so that\nhis heart emptied itself of all feeling whatsoever as by a sudden\ndraught.\n\n\"Oh! oh! This fiery height! Oh, my feet of fire! My burning feet of\nfire ...!\" ran in far, beseeching accents of indescribable appeal this\nvoice of anguish down the sky. Once it called--then silence through all\nthe listening wilderness of trees.\n\nAnd Simpson, scarcely knowing what he did, presently found himself\nrunning wildly to and fro, searching, calling, tripping over roots and\nboulders, and flinging himself in a frenzy of undirected pursuit after\nthe Caller. Behind the screen of memory and emotion with which\nexperience veils events, he plunged, distracted and half-deranged,\npicking up false lights like a ship at sea, terror in his eyes and\nheart and soul. For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him in\nthat far voice--the Power of untamed Distance--the Enticement of the\nDesolation that destroys. He knew in that moment all the pains of\nsomeone hopelessly and irretrievably lost, suffering the lust and\ntravail of a soul in the final Loneliness. A vision of D\u00e9fago, eternally\nhunted, driven and pursued across the skiey vastness of those ancient\nforests fled like a flame across the dark ruin of his thoughts ...\n\nIt seemed ages before he could find anything in the chaos of his\ndisorganized sensations to which he could anchor himself steady for a\nmoment, and think ...\n\nThe cry was not repeated; his own hoarse calling brought no response;\nthe inscrutable forces of the Wild had summoned their victim beyond\nrecall--and held him fast.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYet he searched and called, it seems, for hours afterwards, for it was\nlate in the afternoon when at length he decided to abandon a useless\npursuit and return to his camp on the shores of Fifty Island Water. Even\nthen he went with reluctance, that crying voice still echoing in his\nears. With difficulty he found his rifle and the homeward trail. The\nconcentration necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a biting\nhunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind steady. Otherwise, he\nadmits, the temporary aberration he had suffered might have been\nprolonged to the point of positive disaster. Gradually the ballast\nshifted back again, and he regained something that approached his normal\nequilibrium.\n\nBut for all that the journey through the gathering dusk was miserably\nhaunted. He heard innumerable following footsteps; voices that laughed\nand whispered; and saw figures crouching behind trees and boulders,\nmaking signs to one another for a concerted attack the moment he had\npassed. The creeping murmur of the wind made him start and listen. He\nwent stealthily, trying to hide where possible, and making as little\nsound as he could. The shadows of the woods, hitherto protective or\ncovering merely, had now become menacing, challenging; and the pageantry\nin his frightened mind masked a host of possibilities that were all the\nmore ominous for being obscure. The presentiment of a nameless doom\nlurked ill-concealed behind every detail of what had happened.\n\nIt was really admirable how he emerged victor in the end; men of riper\npowers and experience might have come through the ordeal with less\nsuccess. He had himself tolerably well in hand, all things considered,\nand his plan of action proves it. Sleep being absolutely out of the\nquestion and traveling an unknown trail in the darkness equally\nimpracticable, he sat up the whole of that night, rifle in hand, before\na fire he never for a single moment allowed to die down. The severity of\nthe haunted vigil marked his soul for life; but it was successfully\naccomplished; and with the very first signs of dawn he set forth upon\nthe long return journey to the home camp to get help. As before, he left\na written note to explain his absence, and to indicate where he had left\na plentiful _cache_ of food and matches--though he had no expectation\nthat any human hands would find them!\n\nHow Simpson found his way alone by the lake and forest might well make a\nstory in itself, for to hear him tell it is to _know_ the passionate\nloneliness of soul that a man can feel when the Wilderness holds him in\nthe hollow of its illimitable hand--and laughs. It is also to admire his\nindomitable pluck.\n\nHe claims no skill, declaring that he followed the almost invisible\ntrail mechanically, and without thinking. And this, doubtless, is the\ntruth. He relied upon the guiding of the unconscious mind, which is\ninstinct. Perhaps, too, some sense of orientation, known to animals and\nprimitive men, may have helped as well, for through all that tangled\nregion he succeeded in reaching the exact spot where D\u00e9fago had hidden\nthe canoe nearly three days before with the remark, \"Strike doo west\nacross the lake into the sun to find the camp.\"\n\nThere was not much sun left to guide him, but he used his compass to the\nbest of his ability, embarking in the frail craft for the last twelve\nmiles of his journey with a sensation of immense relief that the forest\nwas at last behind him. And, fortunately, the water was calm; he took\nhis line across the center of the lake instead of coasting round the\nshores for another twenty miles. Fortunately, too, the other hunters\nwere back. The light of their fires furnished a steering point without\nwhich he might have searched all night long for the actual position of\nthe camp.\n\nIt was close upon midnight all the same when his canoe grated on the\nsandy cove, and Hank, Punk and his uncle, disturbed in their sleep by\nhis cries, ran quickly down and helped a very exhausted and broken\nspecimen of Scotch humanity over the rocks toward a dying fire.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThe sudden entrance of his prosaic uncle into this world of wizardry\nand horror that had haunted him without interruption now for two days\nand two nights, had the immediate effect of giving to the affair an\nentirely new aspect. The sound of that crisp \"Hulloa, my boy! And what's\nup _now_?\" and the grasp of that dry and vigorous hand introduced\nanother standard of judgment. A revulsion of feeling washed through him.\nHe realized that he had let himself \"go\" rather badly. He even felt\nvaguely ashamed of himself. The native hard-headedness of his race\nreclaimed him.\n\nAnd this doubtless explains why he found it so hard to tell that group\nround the fire--everything. He told enough, however, for the immediate\ndecision to be arrived at that a relief party must start at the earliest\npossible moment, and that Simpson, in order to guide it capably, must\nfirst have food and, above all, sleep. Dr. Cathcart observing the lad's\ncondition more shrewdly than his patient knew, gave him a very slight\ninjection of morphine. For six hours he slept like the dead.\n\nFrom the description carefully written out afterwards by this student of\ndivinity, it appears that the account he gave to the astonished group\nomitted sundry vital and important details. He declares that, with his\nuncle's wholesome, matter-of-fact countenance staring him in the face,\nhe simply had not the courage to mention them. Thus, all the search\nparty gathered, it would seem, was that D\u00e9fago had suffered in the night\nan acute and inexplicable attack of mania, had imagined himself \"called\"\nby someone or something, and had plunged into the bush after it without\nfood or rifle, where he must die a horrible and lingering death by cold\nand starvation unless he could be found and rescued in time. \"In time,\"\nmoreover, meant _at once_.\n\nIn the course of the following day, however--they were off by seven,\nleaving Punk in charge with instructions to have food and fire always\nready--Simpson found it possible to tell his uncle a good deal more of\nthe story's true inwardness, without divining that it was drawn out of\nhim as a matter of fact by a very subtle form of cross examination. By\nthe time they reached the beginning of the trail, where the canoe was\nlaid up against the return journey, he had mentioned how D\u00e9fago spoke\nvaguely of \"something he called a 'Wendigo'\"; how he cried in his sleep;\nhow he imagined an unusual scent about the camp; and had betrayed other\nsymptoms of mental excitement. He also admitted the bewildering effect\nof \"that extraordinary odor\" upon himself, \"pungent and acrid like the\nodor of lions.\" And by the time they were within an easy hour of Fifty\nIsland Water he had let slip the further fact--a foolish avowal of his\nown hysterical condition, as he felt afterwards--that he had heard the\nvanished guide call \"for help.\" He omitted the singular phrases used,\nfor he simply could not bring himself to repeat the preposterous\nlanguage. Also, while describing how the man's footsteps in the snow had\ngradually assumed an exact miniature likeness of the animal's plunging\ntracks, he left out the fact that they measured a _wholly_ incredible\ndistance. It seemed a question, nicely balanced between individual pride\nand honesty, what he should reveal and what suppress. He mentioned the\nfiery tinge in the snow, for instance, yet shrank from telling that body\nand bed had been partly dragged out of the tent....\n\nWith the net result that Dr. Cathcart, adroit psychologist that he\nfancied himself to be, had assured him clearly enough exactly where his\nmind, influenced by loneliness, bewilderment and terror, had yielded to\nthe strain and invited delusion. While praising his conduct, he managed\nat the same time to point out where, when, and how his mind had gone\nastray. He made his nephew think himself finer than he was by judicious\npraise, yet more foolish than he was by minimizing the value of the\nevidence. Like many another materialist, that is, he lied cleverly on\nthe basis of insufficient knowledge, _because_ the knowledge supplied\nseemed to his own particular intelligence inadmissible.\n\n\"The spell of these terrible solitudes,\" he said, \"cannot leave any mind\nuntouched, any mind, that is, possessed of the higher imaginative\nqualities. It has worked upon yours exactly as it worked upon my own\nwhen I was your age. The animal that haunted your little camp was\nundoubtedly a moose, for the 'belling' of a moose may have, sometimes, a\nvery peculiar quality of sound. The colored appearance of the big tracks\nwas obviously a defect of vision in your own eyes produced by\nexcitement. The size and stretch of the tracks we shall prove when we\ncome to them. But the hallucination of an audible voice, of course, is\none of the commonest forms of delusion due to mental excitement--an\nexcitement, my dear boy, perfectly excusable, and, let me add,\nwonderfully controlled by you under the circumstances. For the rest, I\nam bound to say, you have acted with a splendid courage, for the terror\nof feeling oneself lost in this wilderness is nothing short of awful,\nand, had I been in your place, I don't for a moment believe I could have\nbehaved with one quarter of your wisdom and decision. The only thing I\nfind it uncommonly difficult to explain is--that--damned odor.\"\n\n\"It made me feel sick, I assure you,\" declared his nephew, \"positively\ndizzy!\" His uncle's attitude of calm omniscience, merely because he knew\nmore psychological formulae, made him slightly defiant. It was so easy\nto be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personally\nwitnessed. \"A kind of desolate and terrible odor is the only way I can\ndescribe it,\" he concluded, glancing at the features of the quiet,\nunemotional man beside him.\n\n\"I can only marvel,\" was the reply, \"that under the circumstances it did\nnot seem to you even worse.\" The dry words, Simpson knew, hovered\nbetween the truth, and his uncle's interpretation of \"the truth.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd so at last they came to the little camp and found the tent still\nstanding, the remains of the fire, and the piece of paper pinned to a\nstake beside it--untouched. The cache, poorly contrived by inexperienced\nhands, however, had been discovered and opened--by musk rats, mink and\nsquirrel. The matches lay scattered about the opening, but the food had\nbeen taken to the last crumb.\n\n\"Well, fellers, he ain't here,\" exclaimed Hank loudly after his fashion.\n\"And that's as sartain as the coal supply down below! But whar he's got\nto by this time is 'bout as unsartain as the trade in crowns in t'other\nplace.\" The presence of a divinity student was no barrier to his\nlanguage at such a time, though for the reader's sake it may be severely\nedited. \"I propose,\" he added, \"that we start out at once an' hunt for'm\nlike hell!\"\n\nThe gloom of D\u00e9fago's probable fate oppressed the whole party with a\nsense of dreadful gravity the moment they saw the familiar signs of\nrecent occupancy. Especially the tent, with the bed of balsam branches\nstill smoothed and flattened by the pressure of his body, seemed to\nbring his presence near to them. Simpson, feeling vaguely as if his\nworld were somehow at stake, went about explaining particulars in a\nhushed tone. He was much calmer now, though overwearied with the strain\nof his many journeys. His uncle's method of explaining--\"explaining\naway,\" rather--the details still fresh in his haunted memory helped,\ntoo, to put ice upon his emotions.\n\n\"And that's the direction he ran off in,\" he said to his two companions,\npointing in the direction where the guide had vanished that morning in\nthe grey dawn. \"Straight down there he ran like a deer, in between the\nbirch and the hemlock....\"\n\nHank and Dr. Cathcart exchanged glances.\n\n\"And it was about two miles down there, in a straight line,\" continued\nthe other, speaking with something of the former terror in his voice,\n\"that I followed his trail to the place where--it stopped--dead!\"\n\n\"And where you heered him callin' an' caught the stench, an' all the\nrest of the wicked entertainment,\" cried Hank, with a volubility that\nbetrayed his keen distress.\n\n\"And where your excitement overcame you to the point of producing\nillusions,\" added Dr. Cathcart under his breath, yet not so low that his\nnephew did not hear it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was early in the afternoon, for they had traveled quickly, and there\nwere still a good two hours of daylight left. Dr. Cathcart and Hank lost\nno time in beginning the search, but Simpson was too exhausted to\naccompany them. They would follow the blazed marks on the trees, and\nwhere possible, his footsteps. Meanwhile the best thing he could do was\nto keep a good fire going, and rest.\n\nBut after something like three hours' search, the darkness already down,\nthe two men returned to camp with nothing to report. Fresh snow had\ncovered all signs, and though they had followed the blazed trees to the\nspot where Simpson had turned back, they had not discovered the smallest\nindication of a human being--or for that matter, of an animal. There\nwere no fresh tracks of any kind; the snow lay undisturbed.\n\nIt was difficult to know what was best to do, though in reality there\nwas nothing more they _could_ do. They might stay and search for weeks\nwithout much chance of success. The fresh snow destroyed their only\nhope, and they gathered round the fire for supper, a gloomy and\ndespondent party. The facts, indeed, were sad enough, for D\u00e9fago had a\nwife at Rat Portage, and his earnings were the family's sole means of\nsupport.\n\nNow that the whole truth in all its ugliness was out, it seemed useless\nto deal in further disguise or pretense. They talked openly of the facts\nand probabilities. It was not the first time, even in the experience of\nDr. Cathcart, that a man had yielded to the singular seduction of the\nSolitudes and gone out of his mind; D\u00e9fago, moreover, was predisposed to\nsomething of the sort, for he already had a touch of melancholia in his\nblood, and his fiber was weakened by bouts of drinking that often lasted\nfor weeks at a time. Something on this trip--one might never know\nprecisely what--had sufficed to push him over the line, that was all.\nAnd he had gone, gone off into the great wilderness of trees and lakes\nto die by starvation and exhaustion. The chances against his finding\ncamp again were overwhelming; the delirium that was upon him would also\ndoubtless have increased, and it was quite likely he might do violence\nto himself and so hasten his cruel fate. Even while they talked, indeed,\nthe end had probably come. On the suggestion of Hank, his old pal,\nhowever, they proposed to wait a little longer and devote the whole of\nthe following day, from dawn to darkness, to the most systematic search\nthey could devise. They would divide the territory between them. They\ndiscussed their plan in great detail. All that men could do they would\ndo. And, meanwhile, they talked about the particular form in which the\nsingular Panic of the Wilderness had made its attack upon the mind of\nthe unfortunate guide. Hank, though familiar with the legend in its\ngeneral outline, obviously did not welcome the turn the conversation had\ntaken. He contributed little, though that little was illuminating. For\nhe admitted that a story ran over all this section of country to the\neffect that several Indians had \"seen the Wendigo\" along the shores of\nFifty Island Water in the \"fall\" of last year, and that this was the\ntrue reason of D\u00e9fago's disinclination to hunt there. Hank doubtless\nfelt that he had in a sense helped his old pal to death by\noverpersuading him. \"When an Indian goes crazy,\" he explained, talking\nto himself more than to the others, it seemed, \"it's always put that\nhe's 'seen the Wendigo.' An' pore old D\u00e9faygo was superstitious down to\nhe very heels ...!\"\n\nAnd then Simpson, feeling the atmosphere more sympathetic, told over\nagain the full story of his astonishing tale; he left out no details\nthis time; he mentioned his own sensations and gripping fears. He only\nomitted the strange language used.\n\n\"But D\u00e9fago surely had already told you all these details of the Wendigo\nlegend, my dear fellow,\" insisted the doctor. \"I mean, he had talked\nabout it, and thus put into your mind the ideas which your own\nexcitement afterwards developed?\"\n\nWhereupon Simpson again repeated the facts. D\u00e9fago, he declared, had\nbarely mentioned the beast. He, Simpson, knew nothing of the story, and,\nso far as he remembered, had never even read about it. Even the word was\nunfamiliar.\n\nOf course he was telling the truth, and Dr. Cathcart was reluctantly\ncompelled to admit the singular character of the whole affair. He did\nnot do this in words so much as in manner, however. He kept his back\nagainst a good, stout tree; he poked the fire into a blaze the moment it\nshowed signs of dying down; he was quicker than any of them to notice\nthe least sound in the night about them--a fish jumping in the lake, a\ntwig snapping in the bush, the dropping of occasional fragments of\nfrozen snow from the branches overhead where the heat loosened them. His\nvoice, too, changed a little in quality, becoming a shade less\nconfident, lower also in tone. Fear, to put it plainly, hovered close\nabout that little camp, and though all three would have been glad to\nspeak of other matters, the only thing they seemed able to discuss was\nthis--the source of their fear. They tried other subjects in vain; there\nwas nothing to say about them. Hank was the most honest of the group; he\nsaid next to nothing. He never once, however, turned his back to the\ndarkness. His face was always to the forest, and when wood was needed he\ndidn't go farther than was necessary to get it.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nA wall of silence wrapped them in, for the snow, though not thick, was\nsufficient to deaden any noise, and the frost held things pretty tight\nbesides. No sound but their voices and the soft roar of the flames made\nitself heard. Only, from time to time, something soft as the flutter of\na pine moth's wings went past them through the air. No one seemed\nanxious to go to bed. The hours slipped towards midnight.\n\n\"The legend is picturesque enough,\" observed the doctor after one of the\nlonger pauses, speaking to break it rather than because he had anything\nto say, \"for the Wendigo is simply the Call of the Wild personified,\nwhich some natures hear to their own destruction.\"\n\n\"That's about it,\" Hank said presently. \"An' there's no misunderstandin'\nwhen you hear it. It calls you by name right 'nough.\"\n\nAnother pause followed. Then Dr. Cathcart came back to the forbidden\nsubject with a rush that made the others jump.\n\n\"The allegory _is_ significant,\" he remarked, looking about him into the\ndarkness, \"for the Voice, they say, resembles all the minor sounds of\nthe Bush--wind, falling water, cries of the animals, and so forth. And,\nonce the victim hears _that_--he's off for good, of course! His most\nvulnerable points, moreover, are said to be the feet and the eyes; the\nfeet, you see, for the lust of wandering, and the eyes for the lust of\nbeauty. The poor beggar goes at such a dreadful speed that he bleeds\nbeneath the eyes, and his feet burn.\"\n\nDr. Cathcart, as he spoke, continued to peer uneasily into the\nsurrounding gloom. His voice sank to a hushed tone.\n\n\"The Wendigo,\" he added, \"is said to burn his feet--owing to the\nfriction, apparently caused by its tremendous velocity--till they drop\noff, and new ones form exactly like its own.\"\n\nSimpson listened in horrified amazement; but it was the pallor on Hank's\nface that fascinated him most. He would willingly have stopped his ears\nand closed his eyes, had he dared.\n\n\"It don't always keep to the ground neither,\" came in Hank's slow, heavy\ndrawl, \"for it goes so high that he thinks the stars have set him all\na-fire. An' it'll take great thumpin' jumps sometimes, an' run along the\ntops of the trees, carrying its partner with it, an' then droppin' him\njest as a fish hawk'll drop a pickerel to kill it before eatin'. An' its\nfood, of all the muck in the whole Bush is--moss!\" And he laughed a\nshort, unnatural laugh. \"It's a moss-eater, is the Wendigo,\" he added,\nlooking up excitedly into the faces of his companions. \"Moss-eater,\" he\nrepeated, with a string of the most outlandish oaths he could invent.\n\nBut Simpson now understood the true purpose of all this talk. What\nthese two men, each strong and \"experienced\" in his own way, dreaded\nmore than anything else was--silence. They were talking against time.\nThey were also talking against darkness, against the invasion of panic,\nagainst the admission reflection might bring that they were in an\nenemy's country--against anything, in fact, rather than allow their\ninmost thoughts to assume control. He himself, already initiated by the\nawful vigil with terror, was beyond both of them in this respect. He had\nreached the stage where he was immune. But these two, the scoffing,\nanalytical doctor, and the honest, dogged backwoodsman, each sat\ntrembling in the depths of his being.\n\nThus the hours passed; and thus, with lowered voices and a kind of taut\ninner resistance of spirit, this little group of humanity sat in the\njaws of the wilderness and talked foolishly of the terrible and haunting\nlegend. It was an unequal contest, all things considered, for the\nwilderness had already the advantage of first attack--and of a hostage.\nThe fate of their comrade hung over them with a steadily increasing\nweight of oppression that finally became insupportable.\n\nIt was Hank, after a pause longer than the preceding ones that no one\nseemed able to break, who first let loose all this pent-up emotion in\nvery unexpected fashion, by springing suddenly to his feet and letting\nout the most ear-shattering yell imaginable into the night. He could not\ncontain himself any longer, it seemed. To make it carry even beyond an\nordinary cry he interrupted its rhythm by shaking the palm of his hand\nbefore his mouth.\n\n\"That's for D\u00e9fago,\" he said, looking down at the other two with a\nqueer, defiant laugh, \"for it's my belief\"--the sandwiched oaths may be\nomitted--\"that my ole partner's not far from us at this very minute.\"\n\nThere was a vehemence and recklessness about his performance that made\nSimpson, too, start to his feet in amazement, and betrayed even the\ndoctor into letting the pipe slip from between his lips. Hank's face was\nghastly, but Cathcart's showed a sudden weakness--a loosening of all his\nfaculties, as it were. Then a momentary anger blazed into his eyes, and\nhe too, though with deliberation born of habitual self-control, got upon\nhis feet and faced the excited guide. For this was unpermissible,\nfoolish, dangerous, and he meant to stop it in the bud.\n\nWhat might have happened in the next minute or two one may speculate\nabout, yet never definitely know, for in the instant of profound silence\nthat followed Hank's roaring voice, and as though in answer to it,\nsomething went past through the darkness of the sky overhead at terrific\nspeed--something of necessity very large, for it displaced much air,\nwhile down between the trees there fell a faint and windy cry of a human\nvoice, calling in tones of indescribable anguish and appeal--\n\n\"Oh, oh! This fiery height! Oh, oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet of\nfire!\"\n\nWhite to the very edge of his shirt, Hank looked stupidly about him like\na child. Dr. Cathcart uttered some kind of unintelligible cry, turning\nas he did so with an instinctive movement of blind terror towards the\nprotection of the tent, then halting in the act as though frozen.\nSimpson, alone of the three, retained his presence of mind a little. His\nown horror was too deep to allow of any immediate reaction. He had heard\nthat cry before.\n\nTurning to his stricken companions, he said almost calmly--\n\n\"That's exactly the cry I heard--the very words he used!\"\n\nThen, lifting his face to the sky, he cried aloud, \"D\u00e9fago, D\u00e9fago! Come\ndown here to us! Come down--!\"\n\nAnd before there was time for anybody to take definite action one way or\nanother, there came the sound of something dropping heavily between the\ntrees, striking the branches on the way down, and landing with a\ndreadful thud upon the frozen earth below. The crash and thunder of it\nwas really terrific.\n\n\"That's him, s'help me the good Gawd!\" came from Hank in a whispering\ncry half choked, his hand going automatically toward the hunting knife\nin his belt. \"And he's coming! He's coming!\" he added, with an\nirrational laugh of horror, as the sounds of heavy footsteps crunching\nover the snow became distinctly audible, approaching through the\nblackness towards the circle of light.\n\nAnd while the steps, with their stumbling motion, moved nearer and\nnearer upon them, the three men stood round that fire, motionless and\ndumb. Dr. Cathcart had the appearance of a man suddenly withered; even\nhis eyes did not move. Hank, suffering shockingly, seemed on the verge\nagain of violent action; yet did nothing. He, too, was hewn of stone.\nLike stricken children they seemed. The picture was hideous. And,\nmeanwhile, their owner still invisible, the footsteps came closer,\ncrunching the frozen snow. It was endless--too prolonged to be quite\nreal--this measured and pitiless approach. It was accursed.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nThen at length the darkness, having thus laboriously conceived, brought\nforth--a figure. It drew forward into the zone of uncertain light where\nfire and shadows mingled, not ten feet away; then halted, staring at\nthem fixedly. The same instant it started forward again with the\nspasmodic motion as of a thing moved by wires, and coming up closer to\nthem, full into the glare of the fire, they perceived then that--it was\na man; and apparently that this man was--D\u00e9fago.\n\nSomething like a skin of horror almost perceptibly drew down in that\nmoment over every face, and three pairs of eyes shone through it as\nthough they saw across the frontiers of normal vision into the Unknown.\n\nD\u00e9fago advanced, his tread faltering and uncertain; he made his way\nstraight up to them as a group first, then turned sharply and peered\nclose into the face of Simpson. The sound of a voice issued from his\nlips--\n\n\"Here I am, Boss Simpson. I heered someone calling me.\" It was a faint,\ndried up voice, made wheezy and breathless as by immense exertion. \"I'm\nhavin' a reg'lar hellfire kind of a trip, I am.\" And he laughed,\nthrusting his head forward into the other's face.\n\nBut that laugh started the machinery of the group of waxwork figures\nwith the wax-white skins. Hank immediately sprang forward with a stream\nof oaths so farfetched that Simpson did not recognize them as English at\nall, but thought he had lapsed into Indian or some other lingo. He only\nrealized that Hank's presence, thrust thus between them, was\nwelcome--uncommonly welcome. Dr. Cathcart, though more calmly and\nleisurely, advanced behind him, heavily stumbling.\n\nSimpson seems hazy as to what was actually said and done in those next\nfew seconds, for the eyes of that detestable and blasted visage peering\nat such close quarters into his own utterly bewildered his senses at\nfirst. He merely stood still. He said nothing. He had not the trained\nwill of the older men that forced them into action in defiance of all\nemotional stress. He watched them moving as behind a glass that half\ndestroyed their reality; it was dreamlike; perverted. Yet, through the\ntorrent of Hank's meaningless phrases, he remembers hearing his uncle's\ntone of authority--hard and forced--saying several things about food and\nwarmth, blankets, whisky and the rest ... and, further, that whiffs of\nthat penetrating, unaccustomed odor, vile yet sweetly bewildering,\nassailed his nostrils during all that followed.\n\nIt was no less a person than himself, however--less experienced and\nadroit than the others though he was--who gave instinctive utterance to\nthe sentence that brought a measure of relief into the ghastly situation\nby expressing the doubt and thought in each one's heart.\n\n\"It _is_--YOU, isn't it, D\u00e9fago?\" he asked under his breath, horror\nbreaking his speech.\n\nAnd at once Cathcart burst out with the loud answer before the other had\ntime to move his lips. \"Of course it is! Of course it is! Only--can't\nyou see--he's nearly dead with exhaustion, cold and terror! Isn't _that_\nenough to change a man beyond all recognition?\" It was said in order to\nconvince himself as much as to convince the others. The overemphasis\nalone proved that. And continually, while he spoke and acted, he held a\nhandkerchief to his nose. That odor pervaded the whole camp.\n\nFor the \"D\u00e9fago\" who sat huddled by the big fire, wrapped in blankets,\ndrinking hot whisky and holding food in wasted hands, was no more like\nthe guide they had last seen alive than the picture of a man of sixty is\nlike a daguerreotype of his early youth in the costume of another\ngeneration. Nothing really can describe that ghastly caricature, that\nparody, masquerading there in the firelight as D\u00e9fago. From the ruins of\nthe dark and awful memories he still retains, Simpson declares that the\nface was more animal than human, the features drawn about into wrong\nproportions, the skin loose and hanging, as though he had been subjected\nto extraordinary pressures and tensions. It made him think vaguely of\nthose bladder faces blown up by the hawkers on Ludgate Hill, that change\ntheir expression as they swell, and as they collapse emit a faint and\nwailing imitation of a voice. Both face and voice suggested some such\nabominable resemblance. But Cathcart long afterwards, seeking to\ndescribe the indescribable, asserts that thus might have looked a face\nand body that had been in air so rarified that, the weight of atmosphere\nbeing removed, the entire structure threatened to fly asunder and\nbecome--_incoherent_....\n\nIt was Hank, though all distraught and shaking with a tearing volume of\nemotion he could neither handle nor understand, who brought things to a\nhead without much ado. He went off to a little distance from the fire,\napparently so that the light should not dazzle him too much, and shading\nhis eyes for a moment with both hands, shouted in a loud voice that held\nanger and affection dreadfully mingled:\n\n\"You ain't D\u00e9faygo! You ain't D\u00e9faygo at all! I don't give a--damn, but\nthat ain't you, my ole pal of twenty years!\" He glared upon the huddled\nfigure as though he would destroy him with his eyes. \"An' if it is I'll\nswab the floor of hell with a wad of cotton wool on a toothpick, s'help\nme the good Gawd!\" he added, with a violent fling of horror and disgust.\n\nIt was impossible to silence him. He stood there shouting like one\npossessed, horrible to see, horrible to hear--_because it was the\ntruth_. He repeated himself in fifty different ways, each more\noutlandish than the last. The woods rang with echoes. At one time it\nlooked as if he meant to fling himself upon \"the intruder,\" for his hand\ncontinually jerked towards the long hunting knife in his belt.\n\nBut in the end he did nothing, and the whole tempest completed itself\nvery shortly with tears. Hank's voice suddenly broke, he collapsed on\nthe ground, and Cathcart somehow or other persuaded him at last to go\ninto the tent and lie quiet. The remainder of the affair, indeed, was\nwitnessed by him from behind the canvas, his white and terrified face\npeeping through the crack of the tent door flap.\n\nThen Dr. Cathcart, closely followed by his nephew who so far had kept\nhis courage better than all of them, went up with a determined air and\nstood opposite to the figure of D\u00e9fago huddled over the fire. He looked\nhim squarely in the face and spoke. At first his voice was firm.\n\n\"D\u00e9fago, tell us what's happened--just a little, so that we can know\nhow best to help you?\" he asked in a tone of authority, almost of\ncommand. And at that point, it _was_ command. At once afterwards,\nhowever, it changed in quality, for the figure turned up to him a face\nso piteous, so terrible and so little like humanity, that the doctor\nshrank back from him as from something spiritually unclean. Simpson,\nwatching close behind him, says he got the impression of a mask that was\non the verge of dropping off, and that underneath they would discover\nsomething black and diabolical, revealed in utter nakedness. \"Out with\nit, man, out with it!\" Cathcart cried, terror running neck and neck with\nentreaty. \"None of us can stand this much longer ...!\" It was the cry of\ninstinct over reason.\n\nAnd then \"D\u00e9fago,\" smiling _whitely_, answered in that thin and fading\nvoice that already seemed passing over into a sound of quite another\ncharacter--\n\n\"I seen that great Wendigo thing,\" he whispered, sniffing the air about\nhim exactly like an animal. \"I been with it too--\"\n\nWhether the poor devil would have said more, or whether Dr. Cathcart\nwould have continued the impossible cross examination cannot be known,\nfor at that moment the voice of Hank was heard yelling at the top of his\nvoice from behind the canvas that concealed all but his terrified eyes.\nSuch a howling was never heard.\n\n\"His feet! Oh, Gawd, his feet! Look at his great changed--feet!\"\n\nD\u00e9fago, shuffling where he sat, had moved in such a way that for the\nfirst time his legs were in full light and his feet were visible. Yet\nSimpson had no time, himself, to see properly what Hank had seen. And\nHank has never seen fit to tell. That same instant, with a leap like\nthat of a frightened tiger, Cathcart was upon him, bundling the folds of\nblanket about his legs with such speed that the young student caught\nlittle more than a passing glimpse of something dark and oddly massed\nwhere moccasined feet ought to have been, and saw even that but with\nuncertain vision.\n\nThen, before the doctor had time to do more, or Simpson time to even\nthink a question, much less ask it, D\u00e9fago was standing upright in front\nof them, balancing with pain and difficulty, and upon his shapeless and\ntwisted visage an expression so dark and so malicious that it was, in\nthe true sense, monstrous.\n\n\"Now _you_ seen it too,\" he wheezed, \"you seen my fiery, burning feet!\nAnd now--that is, unless you kin save me an' prevent--it's 'bout time\nfor--\"\n\nHis piteous and beseeching voice was interrupted by a sound that was\nlike the roar of wind coming across the lake. The trees overhead shook\ntheir tangled branches. The blazing fire bent its flames as before a\nblast. And something swept with a terrific, rushing noise about the\nlittle camp and seemed to surround it entirely in a single moment of\ntime. D\u00e9fago shook the clinging blankets from his body, turned towards\nthe woods behind, and with the same stumbling motion that had brought\nhim--was gone: gone, before anyone could move muscle to prevent him,\ngone with an amazing, blundering swiftness that left no time to act. The\ndarkness positively swallowed him; and less than a dozen seconds later,\nabove the roar of the swaying trees and the shout of the sudden wind,\nall three men, watching and listening with stricken hearts, heard a cry\nthat seemed to drop down upon them from a great height of sky and\ndistance--\n\n\"Oh, oh! This fiery height! Oh, oh! My feet of fire! My burning feet of\nfire ...!\" then died away, into untold space and silence.\n\nDr. Cathcart--suddenly master of himself, and therefore of the\nothers--was just able to seize Hank violently by the arm as he tried to\ndash headlong into the Bush.\n\n\"But I want ter know,--you!\" shrieked the guide. \"I want ter see! That\nain't him at all, but some--devil that's shunted into his place ...!\"\n\nSomehow or other--he admits he never quite knew how he accomplished\nit--he managed to keep him in the tent and pacify him. The doctor,\napparently, had reached the stage where reaction had set in and allowed\nhis own innate force to conquer. Certainly he \"managed\" Hank admirably.\nIt was his nephew, however, hitherto so wonderfully controlled, who gave\nhim most cause for anxiety, for the cumulative strain had now produced a\ncondition of lachrymose hysteria which made it necessary to isolate him\nupon a bed of boughs and blankets as far removed from Hank as was\npossible under the circumstances.\n\nAnd there he lay, as the watches of that haunted night passed over the\nlonely camp, crying startled sentences, and fragments of sentences, into\nthe folds of his blanket. A quantity of gibberish about speed and height\nand fire mingled oddly with biblical memories of the classroom. \"People\nwith broken faces all on fire are coming at a most awful, awful, pace\ntowards the camp!\" he would moan one minute; and the next would sit up\nand stare into the woods, intently listening, and whisper, \"How terrible\nin the wilderness are--are the feet of them that--\" until his uncle came\nacross to change the direction of his thoughts and comfort him.\n\nThe hysteria, fortunately, proved but temporary. Sleep cured him, just\nas it cured Hank.\n\nTill the first signs of daylight came, soon after five o'clock, Dr.\nCathcart kept his vigil. His face was the color of chalk, and there were\nstrange flushes beneath the eyes. An appalling terror of the soul\nbattled with his will all through those silent hours. These were some of\nthe outer signs ...\n\nAt dawn he lit the fire himself, made breakfast, and woke the others,\nand by seven they were well on their way back to the home camp--three\nperplexed and afflicted men, but each in his own way having reduced his\ninner turmoil to a condition of more or less systematized order again.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nThey talked little, and then only of the most wholesome and common\nthings, for their minds were charged with painful thoughts that\nclamoured for explanation, though no one dared refer to them. Hank,\nbeing nearest to primitive conditions, was the first to find himself,\nfor he was also less complex. In Dr. Cathcart \"civilization\" championed\nhis forces against an attack singular enough. To this day, perhaps, he\nis not _quite_ sure of certain things. Anyhow, he took longer to \"find\nhimself.\"\n\nSimpson, the student of divinity, it was who arranged his conclusions\nprobably with the best, though not most scientific, appearance of order.\nOut there, in the heart of unreclaimed wilderness, they had surely\nwitnessed something crudely and essentially primitive. Something that\nhad survived somehow the advance of humanity had emerged terrifically,\nbetraying a scale of life still monstrous and immature. He envisaged it\nrather as a glimpse into prehistoric ages, when superstitions, gigantic\nand uncouth, still oppressed the hearts of men; when the forces of nature\nwere still untamed, the Powers that may have haunted a primeval universe\nnot yet withdrawn. To this day he thinks of what he termed years later\nin a sermon \"savage and formidable Potencies lurking behind the souls of\nmen, not evil perhaps in themselves, yet instinctively hostile to humanity\nas it exists.\"\n\nWith his uncle he never discussed the matter in detail, for the barrier\nbetween the two types of mind made it difficult. Only once, years later,\nsomething led them to the frontier of the subject--of a single detail of\nthe subject, rather--\n\n\"Can't you even tell me what--_they_ were like?\" he asked; and the reply,\nthough conceived in wisdom, was not encouraging, \"It is far better you\nshould not try to know, or to find out.\"\n\n\"Well--that odour...?\" persisted the nephew. \"What do you make of that?\"\n\nDr. Cathcart looked at him and raised his eyebrows.\n\n\"Odours,\" he replied, \"are not so easy as sounds and sights of telepathic\ncommunication. I make as much, or as little, probably, as you do\nyourself.\"\n\nHe was not quite so glib as usual with his explanations. That was all.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt the fall of day, cold, exhausted, famished, the party came to the\nend of the long portage and dragged themselves into a camp that at\nfirst glimpse seemed empty. Fire there was none, and no Punk came\nforward to welcome them. The emotional capacity of all three was too\nover-spent to recognize either surprise or annoyance; but the cry of\nspontaneous affection that burst from the lips of Hank, as he rushed\nahead of them towards the fire-place, came probably as a warning that\nthe end of the amazing affair was not quite yet. And both Cathcart and\nhis nephew confessed afterwards that when they saw him kneel down in\nhis excitement and embrace something that reclined, gently moving,\nbeside the extinguished ashes, they felt in their very bones that this\n\"something\" would prove to be D\u00e9fago--the true D\u00e9fago, returned.\n\nAnd so, indeed, it was.\n\nIt is soon told. Exhausted to the point of emaciation, the French\nCanadian--what was left of him, that is--fumbled among the ashes, trying\nto make a fire. His body crouched there, the weak fingers obeying feebly\nthe instinctive habit of a lifetime with twigs and matches. But there\nwas no longer any mind to direct the simple operation. The mind had\nfled beyond recall. And with it, too, had fled memory. Not only recent\nevents, but all previous life was a blank.\n\nThis time it was the real man, though incredibly and horribly shrunken.\nOn his face was no expression of any kind whatever--fear, welcome, or\nrecognition. He did not seem to know who it was that embraced him, or\nwho it was that fed, warmed and spoke to him the words of comfort and\nrelief. Forlorn and broken beyond all reach of human aid, the little man\ndid meekly as he was bidden. The \"something\" that had constituted him\n\"individual\" had vanished for ever.\n\nIn some ways it was more terribly moving than anything they had yet\nseen--that idiot smile as he drew wads of coarse moss from his swollen\ncheeks and told them that he was \"a damned moss-eater\"; the continued\nvomiting of even the simplest food; and, worst of all, the piteous\nand childish voice of complaint in which he told them that his feet\npained him--\"burn like fire\"--which was natural enough when Dr. Cathcart\nexamined them and found that both were dreadfully frozen. Beneath the\neyes there were faint indications of recent bleeding.\n\nThe details of how he survived the prolonged exposure, of where he had\nbeen, or of how he covered the great distance from one camp to the\nother, including an immense detour of the lake on foot since he had\nno canoe--all this remains unknown. His memory had vanished completely.\nAnd before the end of the winter whose beginning witnessed this strange\noccurrence, D\u00e9fago, bereft of mind, memory and soul, had gone with it.\nHe lingered only a few weeks.\n\nAnd what Punk was able to contribute to the story throws no further\nlight upon it. He was cleaning fish by the lake shore about five o'clock\nin the evening--an hour, that is, before the search party returned--when\nhe saw this shadow of the guide picking its way weakly into camp. In\nadvance of him, he declares, came the faint whiff of a certain singular\nodour.\n\nThat same instant old Punk started for home. He covered the entire\njourney of three days as only Indian blood could have covered it. The\nterror of a whole race drove him. He knew what it all meant. D\u00e9fago\nhad \"seen the Wendigo.\"","title":"The Wendigo","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":18423}