The Wendigo

ehow or other did manage to preserve through the whole adventure. Otherwise, two things he presently noticed, while forging pluckily ahead, must have sent him headlong back to the comparati

is change, so far as it concerned the footsteps of

rice about the edges, cast shadows and high lights? Or was it actually the fact that the great marks had become faintly colored? For round about the deep, plunging holes of the animal there now appeared a mysterious, reddish tin

estion. For, in the last hundred yards or so, he saw that they had grown gradually into the semblance of the parent tread. Imperceptibly the change had come about, yet unmistakably. It was hard to see where the change first began. The result, however, was beyond qu

tant stopped dead in his tracks. Immediately in front of him all signs of the trail ceased; both tracks came to an abrupt end.

about him, all distraught; bereft of any power of judgment. Then he set to work to search again, and again, and yet again, but a

calculated lash about his heart. It dropped with deadly effect upon the sorest spot of all, compl

stance, strangely thinned and wailing, he

, listening as it were with his whole body, then staggered back against the nearest tree for support, disorganized hopelessly in mind and spirit. To him, in that mo

n in far, beseeching accents of indescribable appeal this voice of anguish down t

s, he plunged, distracted and half-deranged, picking up false lights like a ship at sea, terror in his eyes and heart and soul. For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him in that far voice-the Power of untamed Distance-the Enticement of the Desolation that destroys. He knew in that mome

chaos of his disorganized sensations to which he cou

ht no response; the inscrutable forces of the Wild had

ctance, that crying voice still echoing in his ears. With difficulty he found his rifle and the homeward trail. The concentration necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a biting hunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind stea

attack the moment he had passed. The creeping murmur of the wind made him start and listen. He went stealthily, trying to hide where possible, and making as little sound as he could. The shadows of the woods, hitherto protective or covering merely, had

raveling an unknown trail in the darkness equally impracticable, he sat up the whole of that night, rifle in hand, before a fire he never for a single moment allowed to die down. The severity of the haunted vigil marked his soul for life; but it was successfully accomplished; and with the v

r him tell it is to know the passionate loneliness of soul that a man can feel when the Wilderness h

unconscious mind, which is instinct. Perhaps, too, some sense of orientation, known to animals and primitive men, may have helped as well, for through all that tangled region he

relief that the forest was at last behind him. And, fortunately, the water was calm; he took his line across the center of the lake instead of coasting round the shores for another twenty mi

, Punk and his uncle, disturbed in their sleep by his cries, ran quickly down and helped