And both Cathcart and
his nephew confessed afterwards that when they saw him kneel down in
his excitement and embrace something that reclined, gently moving,
beside the extinguished ashes, they felt in their very bones that this
"something" would prove to be Défago--the true Défago, returned. And so, indeed, it was. It is soon told. Exhausted to the point of emaciation, the French
Canadian--what was left of him, that is--fumbled among the ashes, trying
to make a fire. His body crouched there, the weak fingers obeying feebly
the instinctive habit of a lifetime with twigs and matches. But there
was no longer any mind to direct the simple operation. The mind had
fled beyond recall. And with it, too, had fled memory. Not only recent
events, but all previous life was a blank. This time it was the real man, though incredibly and horribly shrunken. On his face was no expression of any kind whatever--fear, welcome, or
recognition. He did not seem to know who it was that embraced him, or
who it was that fed, warmed and spoke to him the words of comfort and
relief. Forlorn and broken beyond all reach of human aid, the little man
did meekly as he was bidden. The "something" that had constituted him
"individual" had vanished for ever. In some ways it was more terribly moving than anything they had yet
seen--that idiot smile as he drew wads of coarse moss from his swollen
cheeks and told them that he was "a damned moss-eater"; the continued
vomiting of even the simplest food; and, worst of all, the piteous
and childish voice of complaint in which he told them that his feet
pained him--"burn like fire"--which was natural enough when Dr. Cathcart
examined them and found that both were dreadfully frozen. Beneath the
eyes there were faint indications of recent bleeding. The details of how he survived the prolonged exposure, of where he had
been, or of how he covered the great distance from one camp to the
other, including an immense detour of the lake on foot since he had
no canoe--all this remains unknown. His memory had vanished completely. And before the end of the winter whose beginning witnessed this strange
occurrence, Défago, bereft of mind, memory and soul, had gone with it. He lingered only a few weeks. And what Punk was able to contribute to the story throws no further
light upon it. He was cleaning fish by the lake shore about five o'clock
in the evening--an hour, that is, before the search party returned--when
he saw this shadow of the guide picking its way weakly into camp. In
advance of him, he declares, came the faint whiff of a certain singular
odour. That same instant old Punk started for home. He covered the entire
journey of three days as only Indian blood could have covered it. The
terror of a whole race drove him. He knew what it all meant. Défago