The Wendigo | Page 3

stopped abruptly and looked round. A sound close behind
them in the darkness made all three start. It was old Punk, who had
moved up from his lean-to while they talked and now stood there just
beyond the circle of firelight--listening.
"'Nother time, Doc!" Hank whispered, with a wink, "when the gallery
ain't stepped down into the stalls!" And, springing to his feet, he
slapped the Indian on the back and cried noisily, "Come up t' the fire
an' warm yer dirty red skin a bit." He dragged him towards the blaze
and threw more wood on. "That was a mighty good feed you give us an
hour or two back," he continued heartily, as though to set the man's
thoughts on another scent, "and it ain't Christian to let you stand out
there freezin' yer ole soul to hell while we're gettin' all good an'
toasted!" Punk moved in and warmed his feet, smiling darkly at the
other's volubility which he only half understood, but saying nothing.
And presently Dr. Cathcart, seeing that further conversation was
impossible, followed his nephew's example and moved off to the tent,
leaving the three men smoking over the now blazing fire.
It is not easy to undress in a small tent without waking one's companion,
and Cathcart, hardened and warm-blooded as he was in spite of his fifty
odd years, did what Hank would have described as "considerable of his
twilight" in the open. He noticed, during the process, that Punk had

meanwhile gone back to his lean-to, and that Hank and Défago were at
it hammer and tongs, or, rather, hammer and anvil, the little French
Canadian being the anvil. It was all very like the conventional stage
picture of Western melodrama: the fire lighting up their faces with
patches of alternate red and black; Défago, in slouch hat and moccasins
in the part of the "badlands" villain; Hank, open-faced and hatless, with
that reckless fling of his shoulders, the honest and deceived hero; and
old Punk, eavesdropping in the background, supplying the atmosphere
of mystery. The doctor smiled as he noticed the details; but at the same
time something deep within him--he hardly knew what--shrank a little,
as though an almost imperceptible breath of warning had touched the
surface of his soul and was gone again before he could seize it.
Probably it was traceable to that "scared expression" he had seen in the
eyes of Défago; "probably"--for this hint of fugitive emotion otherwise
escaped his usually so keen analysis. Défago, he was vaguely aware,
might cause trouble somehow ...He was not as steady a guide as Hank,
for instance ... Further than that he could not get ...
He watched the men a moment longer before diving into the stuffy tent
where Simpson already slept soundly. Hank, he saw, was swearing like
a mad African in a New York nigger saloon; but it was the swearing of
"affection." The ridiculous oaths flew freely now that the cause of their
obstruction was asleep. Presently he put his arm almost tenderly upon
his comrade's shoulder, and they moved off together into the shadows
where their tent stood faintly glimmering. Punk, too, a moment later
followed their example and disappeared between his odorous blankets
in the opposite direction.
Dr. Cathcart then likewise turned in, weariness and sleep still fighting
in his mind with an obscure curiosity to know what it was that had
scared Défago about the country up Fifty Island Water
way,--wondering, too, why Punk's presence had prevented the
completion of what Hank had to say. Then sleep overtook him. He
would know tomorrow. Hank would tell him the story while they
trudged after the elusive moose.
Deep silence fell about the little camp, planted there so audaciously in
the jaws of the wilderness. The lake gleamed like a sheet of black glass
beneath the stars. The cold air pricked. In the draughts of night that
poured their silent tide from the depths of the forest, with messages

from distant ridges and from lakes just beginning to freeze, there lay
already the faint, bleak odors of coming winter. White men, with their
dull scent, might never have divined them; the fragrance of the wood
fire would have concealed from them these almost electrical hints of
moss and bark and hardening swamp a hundred miles away. Even Hank
and Défago, subtly in league with the soul of the woods as they were,
would probably have spread their delicate nostrils in vain....
But an hour later, when all slept like the dead, old Punk crept from his
blankets and went down to the shore of the lake like a shadow--silently,
as only Indian blood can move. He raised his head and looked about
him. The thick darkness rendered sight of small avail, but, like the
animals,