V
For a man of his years and inexperience, only a canny Scot, perhaps,grounded in common sense and established in logic, could have preservedeven that measure of balance that this youth somehow or other did manageto preserve through the whole adventure. Otherwise, two things hepresently noticed, while forging pluckily ahead, must have sent himheadlong back to the comparative safety of his tent, instead of onlymaking his hands close more tightly upon the rifle stock, while hisheart, trained for the Wee Kirk, sent a wordless prayer winging its wayto heaven. Both tracks, he saw, had undergone a change, and this change,so far as it concerned the footsteps of the man, was in someundecipherable manner--appalling.
It was in the bigger tracks he first noticed this, and for a long timehe could not quite believe his eyes. Was it the blown leaves thatproduced odd effects of light and shade, or that the dry snow, driftinglike finely ground rice about the edges, cast shadows and high lights?Or was it actually the fact that the great marks had become faintlycolored? For round about the deep, plunging holes of the animal therenow appeared a mysterious, reddish tinge that was more like an effect oflight than of anything that dyed the substance of the snow itself. Everymark had it, and had it increasingly--this indistinct fiery tinge thatpainted a new touch of ghastliness into the picture.
But when, wholly unable to explain or to credit it, he turned hisattention to the other tracks to discover if they, too, bore similarwitness, he noticed that these had meanwhile undergone a change that wasinfinitely worse, and charged with far more horrible suggestion. For, inthe last hundred yards or so, he saw that they had grown gradually intothe semblance of the parent tread. Imperceptibly the change had comeabout, yet unmistakably. It was hard to see where the change firstbegan. The result, however, was beyond question. Smaller, neater, morecleanly modeled, they formed now an exact and careful duplicate of thelarger tracks beside them. The feet that produced them had, therefore,also changed. And something in his mind reared up with loathing and withterror as he saw it.
Simpson, for the first time, hesitated; then, ashamed of his alarm andindecision, took a few hurried steps ahead; the next instant stoppeddead in his tracks. Immediately in front of him all signs of the trailceased; both tracks came to an abrupt end. On all sides, for a hundredyards and more, he searched in vain for the least indication of theircontinuance. 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 tosearch again, and again, and yet again, but always with the same result:_nothing_. The feet that printed the surface of the snow thus far hadnow, apparently, left the ground!
And it was in that moment of distress and confusion that the whip ofterror laid its most nicely calculated lash about his heart. It droppedwith deadly effect upon the sorest spot of all, completely unnervinghim. He had been secretly dreading all the time that it would come--andcome it did.
Far overhead, muted by great height and distance, strangely thinned andwailing, he heard the crying voice of Defago, the guide.
The sound dropped upon him out of that still, wintry sky with an effectof dismay and terror unsurpassed. The rifle fell to his feet. He stoodmotionless an instant, listening as it were with his whole body, thenstaggered back against the nearest tree for support, disorganizedhopelessly in mind and spirit. To him, in that moment, it seemed themost shattering and dislocating experience he had ever known, so thathis heart emptied itself of all feeling whatsoever as by a suddendraught.
"Oh! oh! This fiery height! Oh, my feet of fire! My burning feet offire ...!" ran in far, beseeching accents of indescribable appeal thisvoice of anguish down the sky. Once it called--then silence through allthe listening wilderness of trees.
And Simpson, scarcely knowing what he did, presently found himselfrunning wildly to and fro, searching, calling, tripping over roots andboulders, and flinging himself in a frenzy of undirected pursuit afterthe Caller. Behind the screen of memory and emotion with whichexperience veils events, he plunged, distracted and half-deranged,picking up false lights like a ship at sea, terror in his eyes andheart and soul. For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him inthat far voice--the Power of untamed Distance--the Enticement of theDesolation that destroys. He knew in that moment all the pains ofsomeone hopelessly and irretrievably lost, suffering the lust andtravail of a soul in the final Loneliness. A vision of Defago, eternallyhunted, driven and pursued across the skiey vastness of those ancientforests fled like a flame across the dark ruin of his thoughts ...
It seemed ages before he could find anything in the chaos of hisdisorganized sensations to which he could anchor himself steady for amoment, and think ...
The cry was not repeated; his own hoarse calling brought no response;the inscrutable forces of the Wild had summoned their victim beyondrecall--and held him fast.
* * * * *
Yet he searched and called, it seems, for hours afterwards, for it waslate in the afternoon when at length he decided to abandon a uselesspursuit and return to his camp on the shores of Fifty Island Water. Eventhen he went with reluctance, that crying voice still echoing in hisears. With difficulty he found his rifle and the homeward trail. Theconcentration necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a bitinghunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind steady. Otherwise, headmits, the temporary aberration he had suffered might have beenprolonged to the point of positive disaster. Gradually the ballastshifted back again, and he regained something that approached his normalequilibrium.
But for all that the journey through the gathering dusk was miserablyhaunted. He heard innumerable following footsteps; voices that laughedand whispered; and saw figures crouching behind trees and boulders,making signs to one another for a concerted attack the moment he hadpassed. The creeping murmur of the wind made him start and listen. Hewent stealthily, trying to hide where possible, and making as littlesound as he could. The shadows of the woods, hitherto protective orcovering merely, had now become menacing, challenging; and the pageantryin his frightened mind masked a host of possibilities that were all themore ominous for being obscure. The presentiment of a nameless doomlurked ill-concealed behind every detail of what had happened.
It was really admirable how he emerged victor in the end; men of riperpowers and experience might have come through the ordeal with lesssuccess. He had himself tolerably well in hand, all things considered,and his plan of action proves it. Sleep being absolutely out of thequestion and traveling an unknown trail in the darkness equallyimpracticable, he sat up the whole of that night, rifle in hand, beforea fire he never for a single moment allowed to die down. The severity ofthe haunted vigil marked his soul for life; but it was successfullyaccomplished; and with the very first signs of dawn he set forth uponthe long return journey to the home camp to get help. As before, he lefta written note to explain his absence, and to indicate where he had lefta plentiful _cache_ of food and matches--though he had no expectationthat any human hands would find them!
How Simpson found his way alone by the lake and forest might well make astory in itself, for to hear him tell it is to _know_ the passionateloneliness of soul that a man can feel when the Wilderness holds him inthe hollow of its illimitable hand--and laughs. It is also to admire hisindomitable pluck.
He claims no skill, declaring that he followed the almost invisibletrail mechanically, and without thinking. And this, doubtless, is thetruth. He relied upon the guiding of the unconscious mind, which isinstinct. Perhaps, too, some sense of orientation, known to animals andprimitive men, may have helped as well, for through all that tangledregion he succeeded in reaching the exact spot where Defago had hiddenthe canoe nearly three days before with the remark, "Strike doo westacross the lake into the sun to find the camp."
There was not much sun left to guide him, but he used his compass to thebest of his ability, embarking in the frail craft for the last twelvemiles of h
is journey with a sensation of immense relief that the forestwas at last behind him. And, fortunately, the water was calm; he tookhis line across the center of the lake instead of coasting round theshores for another twenty miles. Fortunately, too, the other hunterswere back. The light of their fires furnished a steering point withoutwhich he might have searched all night long for the actual position ofthe camp.
It was close upon midnight all the same when his canoe grated on thesandy cove, and Hank, Punk and his uncle, disturbed in their sleep byhis cries, ran quickly down and helped a very exhausted and brokenspecimen of Scotch humanity over the rocks toward a dying fire.