In the course of the following day, however--they were off by seven,
leaving Punk in charge with instructions to have food and fire always
ready--Simpson found it possible to tell his uncle a good deal more of
the story's true inwardness, without divining that it was drawn out of
him as a matter of fact by a very subtle form of cross examination. By
the time they reached the beginning of the trail, where the canoe was
laid up against the return journey, he had mentioned how Défago spoke
vaguely of "something he called a 'Wendigo'"; how he cried in his sleep;
how he imagined an unusual scent about the camp; and had betrayed other
symptoms of mental excitement. He also admitted the bewildering effect
of "that extraordinary odor" upon himself, "pungent and acrid like the
odor of lions." And by the time they were within an easy hour of Fifty
Island Water he had let slip the further fact--a foolish avowal of his
own hysterical condition, as he felt afterwards--that he had heard the
vanished guide call "for help." He omitted the singular phrases used,
for he simply could not bring himself to repeat the preposterous
language. Also, while describing how the man's footsteps in the snow had
gradually assumed an exact miniature likeness of the animal's plunging
tracks, he left out the fact that they measured a _wholly_ incredible
distance. It seemed a question, nicely balanced between individual pride
and honesty, what he should reveal and what suppress. He mentioned the
fiery tinge in the snow, for instance, yet shrank from telling that body
and bed had been partly dragged out of the tent....

With the net result that Dr. Cathcart, adroit psychologist that he
fancied himself to be, had assured him clearly enough exactly where his
mind, influenced by loneliness, bewilderment and terror, had yielded to
the strain and invited delusion. While praising his conduct, he managed
at the same time to point out where, when, and how his mind had gone
astray. He made his nephew think himself finer than he was by judicious
praise, yet more foolish than he was by minimizing the value of the
evidence. Like many another materialist, that is, he lied cleverly on
the basis of insufficient knowledge, _because_ the knowledge supplied
seemed to his own particular intelligence inadmissible. "The spell of these terrible solitudes," he said, "cannot leave any mind
untouched, any mind, that is, possessed of the higher imaginative
qualities. It has worked upon yours exactly as it worked upon my own
when I was your age. The animal that haunted your little camp was
undoubtedly a moose, for the 'belling' of a moose may have, sometimes, a
very peculiar quality of sound. The colored appearance of the big tracks
was obviously a defect of vision in your own eyes produced by
excitement. The size and stretch of the tracks we shall prove when we
come to them. But the hallucination of an audible voice, of course, is
one of the commonest forms of delusion due to mental excitement--an
excitement, my dear boy, perfectly excusable, and, let me add,
wonderfully controlled by you under the circumstances. For the rest, I
am bound to say, you have acted with a splendid courage, for the terror
of feeling oneself lost in this wilderness is nothing short of awful,
and, had I been in your place, I don't for a moment believe I could have
behaved with one quarter of your wisdom and decision. The only thing I
find it uncommonly difficult to explain is--that--damned odor." "It made me feel sick, I assure you," declared his nephew, "positively
dizzy!" His uncle's attitude of calm omniscience, merely because he knew
more psychological formulae, made him slightly defiant. It was so easy
to be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personally
witnessed. "A kind of desolate and terrible odor is the only way I can
describe it," he concluded, glancing at the features of the quiet,
unemotional man beside him. "I can only marvel," was the reply, "that under the circumstances it did
not seem to you even worse." The dry words, Simpson knew, hovered
between the truth, and his uncle's interpretation of "the truth." *       *       *       *       *

And so at last they came to the little camp and found the tent still
standing, the remains of the fire, and the piece of paper pinned to a
stake beside it--untouched. The cache, poorly contrived by inexperienced
hands, however, had been discovered and opened--by musk rats, mink and
squirrel. The matches lay scattered about the opening, but the food had
been taken to the last crumb. "Well, fellers, he ain't here," exclaimed Hank loudly after his fashion. "And that's as sartain as the coal supply down below! But whar he's got
to by this time is 'bout as unsartain as the trade in crowns in t'other
place." The presence of a divinity student was no barrier to his
language at such a time, though for the reader's sake it may be severely
edited. "I propose," he added, "that we start out at once an' hunt for'm
like hell!" The gloom of Défago's probable fate oppressed the whole party with a
sense of dreadful gravity the moment they saw the familiar signs of
recent occupancy. Especially the tent, with the bed of balsam branches
still smoothed and flattened by the pressure of his body, seemed to
bring his presence near to them. Simpson, feeling vaguely as if his
world were somehow at stake, went about explaining particulars in a
hushed tone. He was much calmer now, though overwearied with the strain
of his many journeys. His uncle's method of explaining--"explaining
away," rather--the details still fresh in his haunted memory helped,
too, to put ice upon his emotions. "And that's the direction he ran off in," he said to his two companions,
pointing in the direction where the guide had vanished that morning in
the grey dawn. "Straight down there he ran like a deer, in between the
birch and the hemlock...."

Hank and Dr. Cathcart exchanged glances. "And it was about two miles down there, in a straight line," continued
the other, speaking with something of the former terror in his voice,
"that I followed his trail to the place where--it stopped--dead!" "And where you heered him callin' an' caught the stench, an' all the
rest of the wicked entertainment," cried Hank, with a volubility that
betrayed his keen distress. "And where your excitement overcame you to the point of producing
illusions," added Dr. Cathcart under his breath, yet not so low that his
nephew did not hear it. *       *       *       *       *

It was early in the afternoon, for they had traveled quickly, and there
were still a good two hours of daylight left. Dr. Cathcart and Hank lost
no time in beginning the search, but Simpson was too exhausted to
accompany them. They would follow the blazed marks on the trees, and
where possible, his footsteps. Meanwhile the best thing he could do was
to keep a good fire going, and rest.