VI
The sudden entrance of his prosaic uncle into this world of wizardryand horror that had haunted him without interruption now for two daysand two nights, had the immediate effect of giving to the affair anentirely new aspect. The sound of that crisp "Hulloa, my boy! And what'sup _now_?" and the grasp of that dry and vigorous hand introducedanother standard of judgment. A revulsion of feeling washed through him.He realized that he had let himself "go" rather badly. He even feltvaguely ashamed of himself. The native hard-headedness of his racereclaimed him.
And this doubtless explains why he found it so hard to tell that groupround the fire--everything. He told enough, however, for the immediatedecision to be arrived at that a relief party must start at the earliestpossible moment, and that Simpson, in order to guide it capably, mustfirst have food and, above all, sleep. Dr. Cathcart observing the lad'scondition more shrewdly than his patient knew, gave him a very slightinjection of morphine. For six hours he slept like the dead.
From the description carefully written out afterwards by this student ofdivinity, it appears that the account he gave to the astonished groupomitted sundry vital and important details. He declares that, with hisuncle's wholesome, matter-of-fact countenance staring him in the face,he simply had not the courage to mention them. Thus, all the searchparty gathered, it would seem, was that Defago had suffered in the nightan acute and inexplicable attack of mania, had imagined himself "called"by someone or something, and had plunged into the bush after it withoutfood or rifle, where he must die a horrible and lingering death by coldand starvation unless he could be found and rescued in time. "In time,"moreover, meant _at once_.
In the course of the following day, however--they were off by seven,leaving Punk in charge with instructions to have food and fire alwaysready--Simpson found it possible to tell his uncle a good deal more ofthe story's true inwardness, without divining that it was drawn out ofhim as a matter of fact by a very subtle form of cross examination. Bythe time they reached the beginning of the trail, where the canoe waslaid up against the return journey, he had mentioned how Defago spokevaguely of "something he called a 'Wendigo'"; how he cried in his sleep;how he imagined an unusual scent about the camp; and had betrayed othersymptoms of mental excitement. He also admitted the bewildering effectof "that extraordinary odor" upon himself, "pungent and acrid like theodor of lions." And by the time they were within an easy hour of FiftyIsland Water he had let slip the further fact--a foolish avowal of hisown hysterical condition, as he felt afterwards--that he had heard thevanished guide call "for help." He omitted the singular phrases used,for he simply could not bring himself to repeat the preposterouslanguage. Also, while describing how the man's footsteps in the snow hadgradually assumed an exact miniature likeness of the animal's plungingtracks, he left out the fact that they measured a _wholly_ incredibledistance. It seemed a question, nicely balanced between individual prideand honesty, what he should reveal and what suppress. He mentioned thefiery tinge in the snow, for instance, yet shrank from telling that bodyand bed had been partly dragged out of the tent....
With the net result that Dr. Cathcart, adroit psychologist that hefancied himself to be, had assured him clearly enough exactly where hismind, influenced by loneliness, bewilderment and terror, had yielded tothe strain and invited delusion. While praising his conduct, he managedat the same time to point out where, when, and how his mind had goneastray. He made his nephew think himself finer than he was by judiciouspraise, yet more foolish than he was by minimizing the value of theevidence. Like many another materialist, that is, he lied cleverly onthe basis of insufficient knowledge, _because_ the knowledge suppliedseemed to his own particular intelligence inadmissible.
"The spell of these terrible solitudes," he said, "cannot leave any minduntouched, any mind, that is, possessed of the higher imaginativequalities. It has worked upon yours exactly as it worked upon my ownwhen I was your age. The animal that haunted your little camp wasundoubtedly a moose, for the 'belling' of a moose may have, sometimes, avery peculiar quality of sound. The colored appearance of the big trackswas obviously a defect of vision in your own eyes produced byexcitement. The size and stretch of the tracks we shall prove when wecome to them. But the hallucination of an audible voice, of course, isone of the commonest forms of delusion due to mental excitement--anexcitement, my dear boy, perfectly excusable, and, let me add,wonderfully controlled by you under the circumstances. For the rest, Iam bound to say, you have acted with a splendid courage, for the terrorof 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 havebehaved with one quarter of your wisdom and decision. The only thing Ifind it uncommonly difficult to explain is--that--damned odor."
"It made me feel sick, I assure you," declared his nephew, "positivelydizzy!" His uncle's attitude of calm omniscience, merely because he knewmore psychological formulae, made him slightly defiant. It was so easyto be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personallywitnessed. "A kind of desolate and terrible odor is the only way I candescribe 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 didnot seem to you even worse." The dry words, Simpson knew, hoveredbetween the truth, and his uncle's interpretation of "the truth."
* * * * *
And so at last they came to the little camp and found the tent stillstanding, the remains of the fire, and the piece of paper pinned to astake beside it--untouched. The cache, poorly contrived by inexperiencedhands, however, had been discovered and opened--by musk rats, mink andsquirrel. The matches lay scattered about the opening, but the food hadbeen 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 gotto by this time is 'bout as unsartain as the trade in crowns in t'otherplace." The presence of a divinity student was no barrier to hislanguage at such a time, though for the reader's sake it may be severelyedited. "I propose," he added, "that we start out at once an' hunt for'mlike hell!"
The gloom of Defago's probable fate oppressed the whole party with asense of dreadful gravity the moment they saw the familiar signs ofrecent occupancy. Especially the tent, with the bed of balsam branchesstill smoothed and flattened by the pressure of his body, seemed tobring his presence near to them. Simpson, feeling vaguely as if hisworld were somehow at stake, went about explaining particulars in ahushed tone. He was much calmer now, though overwearied with the strainof his many journeys. His uncle's method of explaining--"explainingaway," 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 inthe grey dawn. "Straight down there he ran like a deer, in between thebirch and the hemlock...."
Hank and Dr. Cathcart exchanged glances.
"And it was about two miles down there, in a straight line," continuedthe 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 therest of the wicked entertainment," cried Hank, with a volubility thatbetrayed his keen distress.
"And where your excitement overcame you to the point of producingillusions," added Dr. Cathcart under his breath, yet not so low that hisnephew did not hear it.
* * * * *
It was early in the afternoon, for they had traveled quickly, and therewere still a good two hours of daylight left. Dr. Cathcart and Hank lostno time in beginning the search, but Simpson was too exhausted toaccompany them. They would follow the blazed marks on the trees, andwhere possible, his footsteps. Meanwhile the best thing he could do wasto keep a good fire going, and rest.
But after
something like three hours' search, the darkness already down,the two men returned to camp with nothing to report. Fresh snow hadcovered all signs, and though they had followed the blazed trees to thespot where Simpson had turned back, they had not discovered the smallestindication of a human being--or for that matter, of an animal. Therewere no fresh tracks of any kind; the snow lay undisturbed.
It was difficult to know what was best to do, though in reality therewas nothing more they _could_ do. They might stay and search for weekswithout much chance of success. The fresh snow destroyed their onlyhope, and they gathered round the fire for supper, a gloomy anddespondent party. The facts, indeed, were sad enough, for Defago had awife at Rat Portage, and his earnings were the family's sole means ofsupport.
Now that the whole truth in all its ugliness was out, it seemed uselessto deal in further disguise or pretense. They talked openly of the factsand probabilities. It was not the first time, even in the experience ofDr. Cathcart, that a man had yielded to the singular seduction of theSolitudes and gone out of his mind; Defago, moreover, was predisposed tosomething of the sort, for he already had a touch of melancholia in hisblood, and his fiber was weakened by bouts of drinking that often lastedfor weeks at a time. Something on this trip--one might never knowprecisely 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 lakesto die by starvation and exhaustion. The chances against his findingcamp again were overwhelming; the delirium that was upon him would alsodoubtless have increased, and it was quite likely he might do violenceto 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 ofthe following day, from dawn to darkness, to the most systematic searchthey could devise. They would divide the territory between them. Theydiscussed their plan in great detail. All that men could do they woulddo. And, meanwhile, they talked about the particular form in which thesingular Panic of the Wilderness had made its attack upon the mind ofthe unfortunate guide. Hank, though familiar with the legend in itsgeneral outline, obviously did not welcome the turn the conversation hadtaken. He contributed little, though that little was illuminating. Forhe admitted that a story ran over all this section of country to theeffect that several Indians had "seen the Wendigo" along the shores ofFifty Island Water in the "fall" of last year, and that this was thetrue reason of Defago's disinclination to hunt there. Hank doubtlessfelt that he had in a sense helped his old pal to death byoverpersuading him. "When an Indian goes crazy," he explained, talkingto himself more than to the others, it seemed, "it's always put thathe's 'seen the Wendigo.' An' pore old Defaygo was superstitious down tohe very heels ...!"
And then Simpson, feeling the atmosphere more sympathetic, told overagain the full story of his astonishing tale; he left out no detailsthis time; he mentioned his own sensations and gripping fears. He onlyomitted the strange language used.
"But Defago surely had already told you all these details of the Wendigolegend, my dear fellow," insisted the doctor. "I mean, he had talkedabout it, and thus put into your mind the ideas which your ownexcitement afterwards developed?"
Whereupon Simpson again repeated the facts. Defago, he declared, hadbarely 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 wasunfamiliar.
Of course he was telling the truth, and Dr. Cathcart was reluctantlycompelled to admit the singular character of the whole affair. He didnot do this in words so much as in manner, however. He kept his backagainst a good, stout tree; he poked the fire into a blaze the moment itshowed signs of dying down; he was quicker than any of them to noticethe least sound in the night about them--a fish jumping in the lake, atwig snapping in the bush, the dropping of occasional fragments offrozen snow from the branches overhead where the heat loosened them. Hisvoice, too, changed a little in quality, becoming a shade lessconfident, lower also in tone. Fear, to put it plainly, hovered closeabout that little camp, and though all three would have been glad tospeak of other matters, the only thing they seemed able to discuss wasthis--the source of their fear. They tried other subjects in vain; therewas nothing to say about them. Hank was the most honest of the group; hesaid next to nothing. He never once, however, turned his back to thedarkness. His face was always to the forest, and when wood was needed hedidn't go farther than was necessary to get it.