Défago nodded. The expression on his face was dark. He, too, felt
uneasy. The younger man understood that in a _hinterland_ of this size
there might well be depths of wood that would never in the life of the
world be known or trodden. The thought was not exactly the sort he
welcomed. In a loud voice, cheerfully, he suggested that it was time for
bed. But the guide lingered, tinkering with the fire, arranging the
stones needlessly, doing a dozen things that did not really need doing. Evidently there was something he wanted to say, yet found it difficult
to "get at." "Say, you, Boss Simpson," he began suddenly, as the last shower of
sparks went up into the air, "you don't--smell nothing, do you--nothing
pertickler, I mean?" The commonplace question, Simpson realized, veiled
a dreadfully serious thought in his mind. A shiver ran down his back. "Nothing but burning wood," he replied firmly, kicking again at the
embers. The sound of his own foot made him start. "And all the evenin' you ain't smelt--nothing?" persisted the guide,
peering at him through the gloom; "nothing extrordiny, and different to
anything else you ever smelt before?" "No, no, man; nothing at all!" he replied aggressively, half angrily. Défago's face cleared. "That's good!" he exclaimed with evident relief. "That's good to hear." "Have _you?_" asked Simpson sharply, and the same instant regretted the
question. The Canadian came closer in the darkness. He shook his head. "I guess
not," he said, though without overwhelming conviction. "It must've been
just that song of mine that did it. It's the song they sing in lumber
camps and godforsaken places like that, when they're skeered the
Wendigo's somewhere around, doin' a bit of swift traveling.--"

"And what's the Wendigo, pray?" Simpson asked quickly, irritated because
again he could not prevent that sudden shiver of the nerves. He knew
that he was close upon the man's terror and the cause of it. Yet a
rushing passionate curiosity overcame his better judgment, and his fear. Défago turned swiftly and looked at him as though he were suddenly about
to shriek. His eyes shone, but his mouth was wide open. Yet all he said,
or whispered rather, for his voice sank very low, was: "It's
nuthin'--nuthin' but what those lousy fellers believe when they've bin
hittin' the bottle too long--a sort of great animal that lives up
yonder," he jerked his head northwards, "quick as lightning in its
tracks, an' bigger'n anything else in the Bush, an' ain't supposed to be
very good to look at--that's all!" "A backwoods superstition--" began Simpson, moving hastily toward the
tent in order to shake off the hand of the guide that clutched his arm. "Come, come, hurry up for God's sake, and get the lantern going! It's
time we were in bed and asleep if we're going to be up with the sun
tomorrow...."

The guide was close on his heels. "I'm coming," he answered out of the
darkness, "I'm coming." And after a slight delay he appeared with the
lantern and hung it from a nail in the front pole of the tent. The
shadows of a hundred trees shifted their places quickly as he did so,
and when he stumbled over the rope, diving swiftly inside, the whole
tent trembled as though a gust of wind struck it. The two men lay down, without undressing, upon their beds of soft balsam
boughs, cunningly arranged. Inside, all was warm and cozy, but outside
the world of crowding trees pressed close about them, marshalling their
million shadows, and smothering the little tent that stood there like a
wee white shell facing the ocean of tremendous forest. Between the two lonely figures within, however, there pressed another
shadow that was _not_ a shadow from the night. It was the Shadow cast by
the strange Fear, never wholly exorcised, that had leaped suddenly upon
Défago in the middle of his singing. And Simpson, as he lay there,
watching the darkness through the open flap of the tent, ready to plunge
into the fragrant abyss of sleep, knew first that unique and profound
stillness of a primeval forest when no wind stirs ... and when the night
has weight and substance that enters into the soul to bind a veil about
it.... Then sleep took him....




III


Thus, it seemed to him, at least. Yet it was true that the lap of the
water, just beyond the tent door, still beat time with his lessening
pulses when he realized that he was lying with his eyes open and that
another sound had recently introduced itself with cunning softness
between the splash and murmur of the little waves. And, long before he understood what this sound was, it had stirred in
him the centers of pity and alarm. He listened intently, though at first
in vain, for the running blood beat all its drums too noisily in his
ears. Did it come, he wondered, from the lake, or from the woods?... Then, suddenly, with a rush and a flutter of the heart, he knew that it
was close beside him in the tent; and, when he turned over for a better
hearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away. It was a
sound of weeping; Défago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the
darkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed
against his mouth to stifle it. And his first feeling, before he could think or reflect, was the rush of
a poignant and searching tenderness. This intimate, human sound, heard
amid the desolation about them, woke pity. It was so incongruous, so
pitifully incongruous--and so vain! Tears--in this vast and cruel
wilderness: of what avail? He thought of a little child crying in
mid-Atlantic.... Then, of course, with fuller realization, and the
memory of what had gone before, came the descent of the terror upon him,
and his blood ran cold. "Défago," he whispered quickly, "what's the matter?" He tried to make
his voice very gentle. "Are you in pain--unhappy--?" There was no reply,
but the sounds ceased abruptly. He stretched his hand out and touched
him. The body did not stir. "Are you awake?" for it occurred to him that the man was crying in his
sleep. "Are you cold?" He noticed that his feet, which were uncovered,
projected beyond the mouth of the tent. He spread an extra fold of his
own blankets over them. The guide had slipped down in his bed, and the
branches seemed to have been dragged with him. He was afraid to pull the
body back again, for fear of waking him. One or two tentative questions he ventured softly, but though he waited
for several minutes there came no reply, nor any sign of movement. Presently he heard his regular and quiet breathing, and putting his hand
again gently on the breast, felt the steady rise and fall beneath. "Let me know if anything's wrong," he whispered, "or if I can do
anything. Wake me at once if you feel--queer." He hardly knew what to say. He lay down again, thinking and wondering
what it all meant. Défago, of course, had been crying in his sleep. Some
dream or other had afflicted him.