But after something like three hours' search, the darkness already down,
the two men returned to camp with nothing to report. Fresh snow had
covered all signs, and though they had followed the blazed trees to the
spot where Simpson had turned back, they had not discovered the smallest
indication of a human being--or for that matter, of an animal. There
were no fresh tracks of any kind; the snow lay undisturbed. It was difficult to know what was best to do, though in reality there
was nothing more they _could_ do. They might stay and search for weeks
without much chance of success. The fresh snow destroyed their only
hope, and they gathered round the fire for supper, a gloomy and
despondent party. The facts, indeed, were sad enough, for Défago had a
wife at Rat Portage, and his earnings were the family's sole means of
support. Now that the whole truth in all its ugliness was out, it seemed useless
to deal in further disguise or pretense. They talked openly of the facts
and probabilities. It was not the first time, even in the experience of
Dr. Cathcart, that a man had yielded to the singular seduction of the
Solitudes and gone out of his mind; Défago, moreover, was predisposed to
something of the sort, for he already had a touch of melancholia in his
blood, and his fiber was weakened by bouts of drinking that often lasted
for weeks at a time. Something on this trip--one might never know
precisely what--had sufficed to push him over the line, that was all. And he had gone, gone off into the great wilderness of trees and lakes
to die by starvation and exhaustion. The chances against his finding
camp again were overwhelming; the delirium that was upon him would also
doubtless have increased, and it was quite likely he might do violence
to himself and so hasten his cruel fate. Even while they talked, indeed,
the end had probably come. On the suggestion of Hank, his old pal,
however, they proposed to wait a little longer and devote the whole of
the following day, from dawn to darkness, to the most systematic search
they could devise. They would divide the territory between them. They
discussed their plan in great detail. All that men could do they would
do. And, meanwhile, they talked about the particular form in which the
singular Panic of the Wilderness had made its attack upon the mind of
the unfortunate guide. Hank, though familiar with the legend in its
general outline, obviously did not welcome the turn the conversation had
taken. He contributed little, though that little was illuminating. For
he admitted that a story ran over all this section of country to the
effect that several Indians had "seen the Wendigo" along the shores of
Fifty Island Water in the "fall" of last year, and that this was the
true reason of Défago's disinclination to hunt there. Hank doubtless
felt that he had in a sense helped his old pal to death by
overpersuading him. "When an Indian goes crazy," he explained, talking
to himself more than to the others, it seemed, "it's always put that
he's 'seen the Wendigo.' An' pore old Défaygo was superstitious down to
he very heels ...!" And then Simpson, feeling the atmosphere more sympathetic, told over
again the full story of his astonishing tale; he left out no details
this time; he mentioned his own sensations and gripping fears. He only
omitted the strange language used. "But Défago surely had already told you all these details of the Wendigo
legend, my dear fellow," insisted the doctor. "I mean, he had talked
about it, and thus put into your mind the ideas which your own
excitement afterwards developed?" Whereupon Simpson again repeated the facts. Défago, he declared, had
barely mentioned the beast. He, Simpson, knew nothing of the story, and,
so far as he remembered, had never even read about it. Even the word was
unfamiliar. Of course he was telling the truth, and Dr. Cathcart was reluctantly
compelled to admit the singular character of the whole affair. He did
not do this in words so much as in manner, however. He kept his back
against a good, stout tree; he poked the fire into a blaze the moment it
showed signs of dying down; he was quicker than any of them to notice
the least sound in the night about them--a fish jumping in the lake, a
twig snapping in the bush, the dropping of occasional fragments of
frozen snow from the branches overhead where the heat loosened them. His
voice, too, changed a little in quality, becoming a shade less
confident, lower also in tone. Fear, to put it plainly, hovered close
about that little camp, and though all three would have been glad to
speak of other matters, the only thing they seemed able to discuss was
this--the source of their fear. They tried other subjects in vain; there
was nothing to say about them. Hank was the most honest of the group; he
said next to nothing. He never once, however, turned his back to the
darkness. His face was always to the forest, and when wood was needed he
didn't go farther than was necessary to get it. VII


A wall of silence wrapped them in, for the snow, though not thick, was
sufficient to deaden any noise, and the frost held things pretty tight
besides. No sound but their voices and the soft roar of the flames made
itself heard. Only, from time to time, something soft as the flutter of
a pine moth's wings went past them through the air. No one seemed
anxious to go to bed. The hours slipped towards midnight. "The legend is picturesque enough," observed the doctor after one of the
longer pauses, speaking to break it rather than because he had anything
to say, "for the Wendigo is simply the Call of the Wild personified,
which some natures hear to their own destruction." "That's about it," Hank said presently. "An' there's no misunderstandin'
when you hear it. It calls you by name right 'nough." Another pause followed. Then Dr. Cathcart came back to the forbidden
subject with a rush that made the others jump. "The allegory _is_ significant," he remarked, looking about him into the
darkness, "for the Voice, they say, resembles all the minor sounds of
the Bush--wind, falling water, cries of the animals, and so forth. And,
once the victim hears _that_--he's off for good, of course! His most
vulnerable points, moreover, are said to be the feet and the eyes; the
feet, you see, for the lust of wandering, and the eyes for the lust of
beauty. The poor beggar goes at such a dreadful speed that he bleeds
beneath the eyes, and his feet burn." Dr. Cathcart, as he spoke, continued to peer uneasily into the
surrounding gloom. His voice sank to a hushed tone. "The Wendigo," he added, "is said to burn his feet--owing to the
friction, apparently caused by its tremendous velocity--till they drop
off, and new ones form exactly like its own." Simpson listened in horrified amazement; but it was the pallor on Hank's
face that fascinated him most. He would willingly have stopped his ears
and closed his eyes, had he dared.