He blazed innumerable trees as he went,
ever fearful of being unable to find the way back, and calling aloud at
intervals of a few seconds the name of the guide. The dull tapping of
the axe upon the massive trunks, and the unnatural accents of his own
voice became at length sounds that he even dreaded to make, dreaded to
hear. For they drew attention without ceasing to his presence and exact
whereabouts, and if it were really the case that something was hunting
himself down in the same way that he was hunting down another--

With a strong effort, he crushed the thought out the instant it rose. It was the beginning, he realized, of a bewilderment utterly diabolical
in kind that would speedily destroy him. *       *       *       *       *

Although the snow was not continuous, lying merely in shallow flurries
over the more open spaces, he found no difficulty in following the
tracks for the first few miles. They went straight as a ruled line
wherever the trees permitted. The stride soon began to increase in
length, till it finally assumed proportions that seemed absolutely
impossible for any ordinary animal to have made. Like huge flying leaps
they became. One of these he measured, and though he knew that "stretch"
of eighteen feet must be somehow wrong, he was at a complete loss to
understand why he found no signs on the snow between the extreme points. But what perplexed him even more, making him feel his vision had gone
utterly awry, was that Défago's stride increased in the same manner, and
finally covered the same incredible distances. It looked as if the great
beast had lifted him with it and carried him across these astonishing
intervals. Simpson, who was much longer in the limb, found that he could
not compass even half the stretch by taking a running jump. And the sight of these huge tracks, running side by side, silent
evidence of a dreadful journey in which terror or madness had urged to
impossible results, was profoundly moving. It shocked him in the secret
depths of his soul. It was the most horrible thing his eyes had ever
looked upon. He began to follow them mechanically, absentmindedly
almost, ever peering over his shoulder to see if he, too, were being
followed by something with a gigantic tread.... And soon it came about
that he no longer quite realized what it was they signified--these
impressions left upon the snow by something nameless and untamed, always
accompanied by the footmarks of the little French Canadian, his guide,
his comrade, the man who had shared his tent a few hours before,
chatting, laughing, even singing by his side....




V


For a man of his years and inexperience, only a canny Scot, perhaps,
grounded in common sense and established in logic, could have preserved
even that measure of balance that this youth somehow or other did manage
to preserve through the whole adventure. Otherwise, two things he
presently noticed, while forging pluckily ahead, must have sent him
headlong back to the comparative safety of his tent, instead of only
making his hands close more tightly upon the rifle stock, while his
heart, trained for the Wee Kirk, sent a wordless prayer winging its way
to heaven. Both tracks, he saw, had undergone a change, and this change,
so far as it concerned the footsteps of the man, was in some
undecipherable manner--appalling. It was in the bigger tracks he first noticed this, and for a long time
he could not quite believe his eyes. Was it the blown leaves that
produced odd effects of light and shade, or that the dry snow, drifting
like finely ground rice about the edges, cast shadows and high lights? Or was it actually the fact that the great marks had become faintly
colored? For round about the deep, plunging holes of the animal there
now appeared a mysterious, reddish tinge that was more like an effect of
light than of anything that dyed the substance of the snow itself. Every
mark had it, and had it increasingly--this indistinct fiery tinge that
painted a new touch of ghastliness into the picture. But when, wholly unable to explain or to credit it, he turned his
attention to the other tracks to discover if they, too, bore similar
witness, he noticed that these had meanwhile undergone a change that was
infinitely worse, and charged with far more horrible suggestion. For, in
the last hundred yards or so, he saw that they had grown gradually into
the semblance of the parent tread. Imperceptibly the change had come
about, yet unmistakably. It was hard to see where the change first
began. The result, however, was beyond question. Smaller, neater, more
cleanly modeled, they formed now an exact and careful duplicate of the
larger tracks beside them. The feet that produced them had, therefore,
also changed. And something in his mind reared up with loathing and with
terror as he saw it. Simpson, for the first time, hesitated; then, ashamed of his alarm and
indecision, took a few hurried steps ahead; the next instant stopped
dead in his tracks. Immediately in front of him all signs of the trail
ceased; both tracks came to an abrupt end. On all sides, for a hundred
yards and more, he searched in vain for the least indication of their
continuance. There was--nothing. The trees were very thick just there, big trees all of them, spruce,
cedar, hemlock; there was no underbrush. He stood, looking about him,
all distraught; bereft of any power of judgment. Then he set to work to
search again, and again, and yet again, but always with the same result:
_nothing_. The feet that printed the surface of the snow thus far had
now, apparently, left the ground! And it was in that moment of distress and confusion that the whip of
terror laid its most nicely calculated lash about his heart. It dropped
with deadly effect upon the sorest spot of all, completely unnerving
him. He had been secretly dreading all the time that it would come--and
come it did. Far overhead, muted by great height and distance, strangely thinned and
wailing, he heard the crying voice of Défago, the guide. The sound dropped upon him out of that still, wintry sky with an effect
of dismay and terror unsurpassed. The rifle fell to his feet. He stood
motionless an instant, listening as it were with his whole body, then
staggered back against the nearest tree for support, disorganized
hopelessly in mind and spirit. To him, in that moment, it seemed the
most shattering and dislocating experience he had ever known, so that
his heart emptied itself of all feeling whatsoever as by a sudden
draught. "Oh! oh! This fiery height! Oh, my feet of fire! My burning feet of
fire ...!" ran in far, beseeching accents of indescribable appeal this
voice of anguish down the sky. Once it called--then silence through all
the listening wilderness of trees. And Simpson, scarcely knowing what he did, presently found himself
running wildly to and fro, searching, calling, tripping over roots and
boulders, and flinging himself in a frenzy of undirected pursuit after
the Caller.