The Wendigo | Page 6

waves along the rocky lake shore were the
only sounds audible. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in all that
vast world of branches nothing stirred. Any moment, it seemed, the
woodland gods, who are to be worshipped in silence and loneliness,
might stretch their mighty and terrific outlines among the trees. In front,
through doorways pillared by huge straight stems, lay the stretch of
Fifty Island Water, a crescent-shaped lake some fifteen miles from tip
to tip, and perhaps five miles across where they were camped. A sky of
rose and saffron, more clear than any atmosphere Simpson had ever
known, still dropped its pale streaming fires across the waves, where
the islands--a hundred, surely, rather than fifty--floated like the fairy
barques of some enchanted fleet. Fringed with pines, whose crests
fingered most delicately the sky, they almost seemed to move upwards
as the light faded--about to weigh anchor and navigate the pathways of
the heavens instead of the currents of their native and desolate lake.
And strips of colored cloud, like flaunting pennons, signaled their
departure to the stars....
The beauty of the scene was strangely uplifting. Simpson smoked the
fish and burnt his fingers into the bargain in his efforts to enjoy it and
at the same time tend the frying pan and the fire. Yet, ever at the back
of his thoughts, lay that other aspect of the wilderness: the indifference
to human life, the merciless spirit of desolation which took no note of
man. The sense of his utter loneliness, now that even Défago had gone,
came close as he looked about him and listened for the sound of his
companion's returning footsteps.
There was pleasure in the sensation, yet with it a perfectly
comprehensible alarm. And instinctively the thought stirred in him:
"What should I--could I, do--if anything happened and he did not come
back--?"
They enjoyed their well-earned supper, eating untold quantities of fish,
and drinking unmilked tea strong enough to kill men who had not
covered thirty miles of hard "going," eating little on the way. And when

it was over, they smoked and told stories round the blazing fire,
laughing, stretching weary limbs, and discussing plans for the morrow.
Défago was in excellent spirits, though disappointed at having no signs
of moose to report. But it was dark and he had not gone far. The
_brulé_, too, was bad. His clothes and hands were smeared with
charcoal. Simpson, watching him, realized with renewed vividness
their position--alone together in the wilderness.
"Défago," he said presently, "these woods, you know, are a bit too big
to feel quite at home in--to feel comfortable in, I mean!... Eh?" He
merely gave expression to the mood of the moment; he was hardly
prepared for the earnestness, the solemnity even, with which the guide
took him up.
"You've hit it right, Simpson, boss," he replied, fixing his searching
brown eyes on his face, "and that's the truth, sure. There's no end to
'em--no end at all." Then he added in a lowered tone as if to himself,
"There's lots found out that, and gone plumb to pieces!"
But the man's gravity of manner was not quite to the other's liking; it
was a little too suggestive for this scenery and setting; he was sorry he
had broached the subject. He remembered suddenly how his uncle had
told him that men were sometimes stricken with a strange fever of the
wilderness, when the seduction of the uninhabited wastes caught them
so fiercely that they went forth, half fascinated, half deluded, to their
death. And he had a shrewd idea that his companion held something in
sympathy with that queer type. He led the conversation on to other
topics, on to Hank and the doctor, for instance, and the natural rivalry
as to who should get the first sight of moose.
"If they went doo west," observed Défago carelessly, "there's sixty
miles between us now--with ole Punk at halfway house eatin' himself
full to bustin' with fish and coffee." They laughed together over the
picture. But the casual mention of those sixty miles again made
Simpson realize the prodigious scale of this land where they hunted;
sixty miles was a mere step; two hundred little more than a step. Stories
of lost hunters rose persistently before his memory. The passion and
mystery of homeless and wandering men, seduced by the beauty of
great forests, swept his soul in a way too vivid to be quite pleasant. He
wondered vaguely whether it was the mood of his companion that
invited the unwelcome suggestion with such persistence.

"Sing us a song, Défago, if you're not too tired," he asked; "one of
those old voyageur songs you sang the other night." He handed his
tobacco pouch to the guide and then