The Wendigo

dows mingled, not ten feet away; then halted, staring at them fixedly. The same instant it started forward again with the spasmodic motion as of a thing mo

moment over every face, and three pairs of eyes shone through it as t

raight up to them as a group first, then turned sharply and peered clo

, made wheezy and breathless as by immense exertion. "I'm havin' a reg'lar hellfire ki

arfetched that Simpson did not recognize them as English at all, but thought he had lapsed into Indian or some other lingo. He only realized that Hank's p

trained will of the older men that forced them into action in defiance of all emotional stress. He watched them moving as behind a glass that half destroyed their reality; it was dreamlike; perverted. Yet, through the torrent of Hank's meaningless phrases, he remembers he

though he was-who gave instinctive utterance to the sentence that brought a measure of r

?" he asked under his breath

dead with exhaustion, cold and terror! Isn't that enough to change a man beyond all recognition?" It was said in order to convince himself as much as to convinc

From the ruins of the dark and awful memories he still retains, Simpson declares that the face was more animal than human, the features drawn about into wrong proportions, the skin loose and hanging, as though he had been subjected to extraordinary pressures and tensions. It made him think vaguely of those bladder faces blown up by the hawkers on Ludgate Hill, that change their expression as they swel

hings to a head without much ado. He went off to a little distance from the fire, apparently so that the light should not dazzle him

glared upon the huddled figure as though he would destroy him with his eyes. "An' if it is I'll swab the floor of hell

ruth. He repeated himself in fifty different ways, each more outlandish than the last. The woods rang with echoes. At one time it lo

psed on the ground, and Cathcart somehow or other persuaded him at last to go into the tent and lie quiet. The remainder of the affa

n all of them, went up with a determined air and stood opposite to the figure of Défago hudd

a face so piteous, so terrible and so little like humanity, that the doctor shrank back from him as from something spiritually unclean. Simpson, watching close behind him, says he got the impression of a mask that was on the verge of dropping off, and that under

hat thin and fading voice that already seemed pas

ispered, sniffing the air about him exac

cross examination cannot be known, for at that moment the voice of Hank was heard yelling at the top of h

his feet! Look at his

nk had seen. And Hank has never seen fit to tell. That same instant, with a leap like that of a frightened tiger, Cathcart was upon him, bundling the folds of blanket about his legs with such

, Défago was standing upright in front of them, balancing with pain and difficulty, and upon his shapel

fiery, burning feet! And now-that is, unless y

rround it entirely in a single moment of time. Défago shook the clinging blankets from his body, turned towards the woods behind, and with the same stumbling motion that had brought him-was gone: gone, before anyone could move muscle to prevent him, gone with an amazing, blundering swiftness that left no

of fire! My burning feet of fire ...!" the

e of the others-was just able to seize Hank violently

. "I want ter see! That ain't him at all, but

llowed his own innate force to conquer. Certainly he "managed" Hank admirably. It was his nephew, however, hitherto so wonderfully controlled, who gave him most cause for anxiety, for the cumulative

ight and fire mingled oddly with biblical memories of the classroom. "People with broken faces all on fire are coming at a most awful, awful, pace towards the camp!" he would moan one minute; and the next would s

oved but temporary. Sleep cur

ce was the color of chalk, and there were strange flushes beneath the eyes. An appalling terror of

well on their way back to the home camp-three perplexed and afflicted men, but each in his ow