formed a crescent, perhaps four miles long, its width between a mile and
half a mile. The slanting gold of sunset flooded it. No wind stirred its
crystal surface. Here it had lain since the redskin's god first made
it; here it would lie until he dried it up again. Towering spruce and
hemlock trooped to its very edge, majestic cedars leaned down as if to
drink, crimson sumachs shone in fiery patches, and maples gleamed orange
and red beyond belief. The air was like wine, with the silence of a
dream.
It was here the red men formerly "made medicine," with all the wild
ritual and tribal ceremony of an ancient day. But it was of Morton,
rather than of Indians, that Hyde thought. If this lonely, hidden
paradise was really stiff with big fish, he owed a lot to Morton for the
information. Peace invaded him, but the excitement of the hunter lay
below.
He looked about him with quick, practised eye for a camping-place before
the sun sank below the forests and the half-lights came. The Indian's
shack, lying in full sunshine on the eastern shore, he found at once;
but the trees lay too thick about it for comfort, nor did he wish to be
so close to its inhabitant. Upon the opposite side, however, an ideal
clearing offered. This lay already in shadow, the huge forest darkening
it toward evening; but the open space attracted. He paddled over quickly
and examined it. The ground was hard and dry, he found, and a little
brook ran tinkling down one side of it into the lake. This outfall, too,
would be a good fishing spot. Also it was sheltered. A few low willows
marked the mouth.
An experienced camper soon makes up his mind. It was a perfect site,
and some charred logs, with traces of former fires, proved that he
was not the first to think so. Hyde was delighted. Then, suddenly,
disappointment came to tinge his pleasure. His kit was landed, and
preparations for putting up the tent were begun, when he recalled
a detail that excitement had so far kept in the background of his
mind--Morton's advice. But not Morton's only, for the storekeeper
at Stony Creek had reinforced it. The big fellow with straggling
moustache and stooping shoulders, dressed in shirt and trousers, had
handed him out a final sentence with the bacon, flour, condensed milk,
and sugar. He had repeated Morton's half-forgotten words:
"Put yer tent on the east shore. I should," he had said at parting.
He remembered Morton, too, apparently. "A shortish fellow, brown as an
Indian and fairly smelling of the woods. Travelling with Jake, the
half-breed." That assuredly was Morton. "Didn't stay long, now, did
he?" he added in a reflective tone.
"Going Windy Lake way, are yer? Or Ten Mile Water, maybe?" he had first
inquired of Hyde.
"Medicine Lake."
"Is that so?" the man said, as though he doubted it for some obscure
reason. He pulled at his ragged moustache a moment. "Is that so, now?"
he repeated. And the final words followed him down-stream after a
considerable pause--the advice about the best shore on which to put his
tent.
All this now suddenly flashed back upon Hyde's mind with a tinge of
disappointment and annoyance, for when two experienced men agreed, their
opinion was not to be lightly disregarded. He wished he had asked the
storekeeper for more details. He looked about him, he reflected, he
hesitated. His ideal camping-ground lay certainly on the forbidden
shore. What in the world, he pondered, could be the objection to it?
But the light was fading; he must decide quickly one way or the other.
After staring at his unpacked dunnage and the tent, already half
erected, he made up his mind with a muttered expression that consigned
both Morton and the storekeeper to less pleasant places. "They must have
_some_ reason," he growled to himself; "fellows like that usually know
what they're talking about. I guess I'd better shift over to the other
side--for to-night, at any rate."
He glanced across the water before actually reloading. No smoke rose
from the Indian's shack. He had seen no sign of a canoe. The man, he
decided, was away. Reluctantly, then, he left the good camping-ground
and paddled across the lake, and half an hour later his tent was up,
firewood collected, and two small trout were already caught for supper.
But the bigger fish, he knew, lay waiting for him on the other side by
the little outfall, and he fell asleep at length on his bed of balsam
boughs, annoyed and disappointed, yet wondering how a mere sentence
could have persuaded him so easily against his own better judgment. He
slept like the dead; the sun was well up before he stirred.
But his morning mood was a very different one. The brilliant light, the
peace, the intoxicating air, all this was too exhilarating for the mind
to harbour foolish fancies, and he marvelled that he could have been so
weak the night before. No hesitation lay in him anywhere. He struck camp
immediately after breakfast, paddled back across the strip of shining
water, and quickly settled in upon the forbidden shore, as he now called
it, with a contemptuous grin. And the more he saw of the spot, the
better he liked it. There was plenty of wood, running water to drink,
an open space about the tent, and there were no flies. The fishing,
moreover, was magnificent. Morton's description was fully justified, and
"stiff with big fish" for once was not an exaggeration.
The useless hours of the early afternoon he passed dozing in the sun, or
wandering through the underbrush beyond the camp. He found no sign of
anything unusual. He bathed in a cool, deep pool; he revelled in the
lonely little paradise. Lonely it certainly was, but the loneliness was
part of its charm; the stillness, the peace, the isolation of this
beautiful backwoods lake delighted him. The silence was divine. He was
entirely satisfied.
After a brew of tea, he strolled toward evening along the shore, looking
for the first sign of a rising fish. A faint ripple on the water, with
the lengthening shadows, made good conditions. _Plop_ followed _plop_,
as the big fellows rose, snatched at their food, and vanished into the
depths. He hurried back. Ten minutes later he had taken his rods and was
gliding cautiously in the canoe through the quiet water.
So good was the sport, indeed, and so quickly did the big trout pile up
in the bottom of the canoe that, despite the growing lateness, he found
it hard to tear himself away. "One more," he said, "and then I really
will go." He landed that "one more," and was in act of taking it off the
hook, when the deep silence of the evening was curiously disturbed. He
became abruptly aware that someone watched him. A pair of eyes, it
seemed, were fixed upon him from some point in the surrounding shadows.
Thus, at least, he interpreted the odd disturbance in his happy mood;
for thus he felt it. The feeling stole over him without the slightest
warning. He was not alone. The slippery big trout dropped from his
fingers. He sat motionless, and stared about him.
Nothing stirred; the ripple on the lake had died away; there was no
wind; the forest lay a single purple mass of shadow; the yellow sky,
fast fading, threw reflections that troubled the eye and made distances
uncertain. But there was no sound, no movement; he saw no figure
anywhere. Yet he knew that someone watched him, and a wave of quite
unreasoning terror gripped him. The nose of the canoe was against the
bank. In a moment, and instinctively, he shoved it off and paddled into
deeper water. The watcher, it came to him also instinctively, was quite
close to him upon that bank. But where? And who? Was it the Indian?
Here, in deeper water, and some twenty yards from the shore, he paused
and strained both sight and hearing to find some possible clue. He felt
half ashamed, now that the first strange feeling passed a little. But
the certainty remained. Absurd as it was, he felt positive that someone
watched him with concentrated and intent regard. Every fibre in his
being told him so; and though he could discover no figure, no new
outline on the shore, he could even have sworn in which clump of willow
bushes the hidden person crouched and stared. His attention seemed drawn
to that particular clump.
The water dripped slowly from his paddle, now lying across the thwarts.
There was no other sound. The canvas of his tent gleamed dimly. A star
or two were out. He waited. Nothing happened.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the feeling passed, and he knew that
the person who had been watching him intently had gone. It was as if a
current had been turned off; the normal world flowed back; the landscape
emptied as if someone had left a room. The disagreeable feeling left him
at the same time, so that he instantly turned the canoe in to the shore
again, landed, and, paddle in hand, went over to examine the clump of
willows he had singled out as the place of concealment. There was no one
there, of course, nor any trace of recent human occupancy. No leaves,
no branches stirred, nor was a single twig displaced; his keen and
practised sight detected no sign of tracks upon the ground. Yet, for all
that, he felt positive that a little time ago someone had crouched among
these very leaves and watched him. He remained absolutely convinced of
it. The watcher, whether Indian, hunter, stray lumberman, or wandering
half-breed, had now withdrawn, a search was useless, and dusk was
falling. He returned to his little camp, more disturbed perhaps than he
cared to acknowledge. He cooked his supper, hung up his catch on a
string, so that no prowling animal could get at it during the night, and
prepared to make himself comfortable until bedtime. Unconsciously, he
built a bigger fire than usual, and found himself peering over his pipe
into the deep shadows beyond the firelight, straining his ears to catch
the slightest sound. He remained generally on the alert in a way that
was new to him.
A man under such conditions and in such a place need not know discomfort
until the sense of loneliness strikes him as too vivid a reality.
Loneliness in a backwoods camp brings charm, pleasure, and a happy sense
of calm until, and unless, it comes too near. It should remain an
ingredient only among other conditions; it should not be directly,
vividly noticed. Once it has crept within short range, however, it may
easily cross the narrow line between comfort and discomfort, and
darkness is an undesirable time for the transition. A curious dread may
easily follow--the dread lest the loneliness suddenly be disturbed, and
the solitary human feel himself open to attack.
For Hyde, now, this transition had been already accomplished; the too
intimate sense of his loneliness had shifted abruptly into the worse
condition of no longer being quite alone. It was an awkward moment, and
the hotel clerk realized his position exactly. He did not quite like it.
He sat there, with his back to the blazing logs, a very visible object
in the light, while all about him the darkness of the forest lay like an
impenetrable wall. He could not see a foot beyond the small circle of
his camp-fire; the silence about him was like the silence of the dead.
No leaf rustled, no wave lapped; he himself sat motionless as a log.
Then again he became suddenly aware that the person who watched him had
returned, and that same intent and concentrated gaze as before was fixed
upon him where he lay. There was no warning; he heard no stealthy tread
or snapping of dry twigs, yet the owner of those steady eyes was very
close to him, probably not a dozen feet away. This sense of proximity
was overwhelming.
It is unquestionable that a shiver ran down his spine. This time,
moreover, he felt positive that the man crouched just beyond the
firelight, the distance he himself could see being nicely calculated,
and straight in front of him. For some minutes he sat without stirring a
single muscle, yet with each muscle ready and alert, straining his eyes
in vain to pierce the darkness, but only succeeding in dazzling his
sight with the reflected light. Then, as he shifted his position slowly,
cautiously, to obtain another angle of vision, his heart gave two big
thumps against his ribs and the hair seemed to rise on his scalp with
the sense of cold that shot horribly up his spine. In the darkness
facing him he saw two small and greenish circles that were certainly
a pair of eyes, yet not the eyes of Indian, hunter, or of any human
being. It was a pair of animal eyes that stared so fixedly at him out of
the night. And this certainly had an immediate and natural effect upon
him.
For, at the menace of those eyes, the fears of millions of long dead
hunters since the dawn of time woke in him. Hotel clerk though he was,
heredity surged through him in an automatic wave of instinct. His hand
groped for a weapon. His fingers fell on the iron head of his small camp
axe, and at once he was himself again. Confidence returned; the vague,
superstitious dread was gone. This was a bear or wolf that smelt
his catch and came to steal it. With beings of that sort he knew
instinctively how to deal, yet admitting, by this very instinct, that
his original dread had been of quite another kind.
"I'll damned quick find out what it is," he exclaimed aloud, and
snatching a burning brand from the fire, he hurled it with good aim
straight at the eyes of the beast before him.
The bit of pitch-pine fell in a shower of sparks that lit the dry grass
this side of the animal, flared up a moment, then died quickly down
again. But in that instant of bright illumination he saw clearly what
his unwelcome visitor was. A big timber wolf sat on its hindquarters,
staring steadily at him through the firelight. He saw its legs and
shoulders, he saw its hair, he saw also the big hemlock trunks lit up
behind it, and the willow scrub on each side. It formed a vivid,
clear-cut picture shown in clear detail by the momentary blaze. To his
amazement, however, the wolf did not turn and bolt away from the burning
log, but withdrew a few yards only, and sat there again on its haunches,
staring, staring as before. Heavens, how it stared! He "shoo-ed" it, but
without effect; it did not budge. He did not waste another good log on
it, for his fear was dissipated now; a timber wolf was a timber wolf,
and it might sit there as long as it pleased, provided it did not try to
steal his catch. No alarm was in him any more. He knew that wolves were
harmless in the summer and autumn, and even when "packed" in the winter,
they would attack a man only when suffering desperate hunger. So he lay
and watched the beast, threw bits of stick in its direction, even talked
to it, wondering only that it never moved. "You can stay there for ever,
if you like," he remarked to it aloud, "for you cannot get at my fish,
and the rest of the grub I shall take into the tent with me!"
The creature blinked its bright green eyes, but made no move.
Why, then, if his fear was gone, did he think of certain things as he
rolled himself in the Hudson Bay blankets before going to sleep? The
immobility of the animal was strange, its refusal to turn and bolt was
still stranger. Never before had he known a wild creature that was not
afraid of fire. Why did it sit and watch him, as with purpose in its
dreadful eyes? How had he felt its presence earlier and instantly? A
timber wolf, especially a solitary timber wolf, was a timid thing, yet
this one feared neither man nor fire. Now, as he lay there wrapped in
his blankets inside the cosy tent, it sat outside beneath the stars,
beside the fading embers, the wind chilly in its fur, the ground cooling
beneath its planted paws, watching him, steadily watching him, perhaps
until the dawn.
It was unusual, it was strange. Having neither imagination nor
tradition, he called upon no store of racial visions. Matter of fact, a
hotel clerk on a fishing holiday, he lay there in his blankets, merely
wondering and puzzled. A timber wolf was a timber wolf and nothing more.
Yet this timber wolf--the idea haunted him--was different. In a word,
the deeper part of his original uneasiness remained. He tossed about, he
shivered sometimes in his broken sleep; he did not go out to see, but he
woke early and unrefreshed.
Again, with the sunshine and the morning wind, however, the incident of
the night before was forgotten, almost unreal. His hunting zeal was
uppermost. The tea and fish were delicious, his pipe had never tasted so
good, the glory of this lonely lake amid primeval forests went to his
head a little; he was a hunter before the Lord, and nothing else. He
tried the edge of the lake, and in the excitement of playing a big fish,
knew suddenly that _it_, the wolf, was there. He paused with the rod,
exactly as if struck. He looked about him, he looked in a definite
direction. The brilliant sunshine made every smallest detail clear and
sharp--boulders of granite, burned stems, crimson sumach, pebbles along
the shore in neat, separate detail--without revealing where the watcher
hid. Then, his sight wandering farther inshore among the tangled
undergrowth, he suddenly picked up the familiar, half-expected outline.
The wolf was lying behind a granite boulder, so that only the head, the
muzzle, and the eyes were visible. It merged in its background. Had he
not known it was a wolf, he could never have separated it from the
landscape. The eyes shone in the sunlight.
There it lay. He looked straight at it. Their eyes, in fact, actually
met full and square. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed aloud, "why, it's like
looking at a human being!" From that moment, unwittingly, he established
a singular personal relation with the beast. And what followed confirmed
this undesirable impression, for the animal rose instantly and came down
in leisurely fashion to the shore, where it stood looking back at him.
It stood and stared into his eyes like some great wild dog, so that he
was aware of a new and almost incredible sensation--that it courted
recognition.
"Well! well!" he exclaimed again, relieving his feelings by addressing
it aloud, "if this doesn't beat everything I ever saw! What d'you want,
anyway?"
He examined it now more carefully. He had never seen a wolf so big
before; it was a tremendous beast, a nasty customer to tackle, he
reflected, if it ever came to that. It stood there absolutely fearless
and full of confidence. In the clear sunlight he took in every detail of
it--a huge, shaggy, lean-flanked timber wolf, its wicked eyes staring
straight into his own, almost with a kind of purpose in them. He saw its
great jaws, its teeth, and its tongue, hung out, dropping saliva a
little. And yet the idea of its savagery, its fierceness, was very
little in him.
He was amazed and puzzled beyond belief. He wished the Indian would come
back. He did not understand this strange behaviour in an animal. Its
eyes, the odd expression in them, gave him a queer, unusual, difficult
feeling. Had his nerves gone wrong, he almost wondered.
The beast stood on the shore and looked at him. He wished for the first
time that he had brought a rifle. With a resounding smack he brought his
paddle down flat upon the water, using all his strength, till the echoes
rang as from a pistol-shot that was audible from one end of the lake to
the other. The wolf never stirred. He shouted, but the beast remained
unmoved. He blinked his eyes, speaking as to a dog, a domestic animal,
a creature accustomed to human ways. It blinked its eyes in return.
At length, increasing his distance from the shore, he continued fishing,
and the excitement of the marvellous sport held his attention--his
surface attention, at any rate. At times he almost forgot the attendant
beast; yet whenever he looked up, he saw it there. And worse; when he
slowly paddled home again, he observed it trotting along the shore as
though to keep him company. Crossing a little bay, he spurted, hoping to
reach the other point before his undesired and undesirable attendant.
Instantly the brute broke into that rapid, tireless lope that, except on
ice, can run down anything on four legs in the woods. When he reached
the distant point, the wolf was waiting for him. He raised his paddle
from the water, pausing a moment for reflection; for this very close
attention--there were dusk and night yet to come--he certainly did not
relish. His camp was near; he had to land; he felt uncomfortable even
in the sunshine of broad day, when, to his keen relief, about half a
mile from the tent, he saw the creature suddenly stop and sit down in
the open. He waited a moment, then paddled on. It did not follow. There
was no attempt to move; it merely sat and watched him. After a few
hundred yards, he looked back. It was still sitting where he left it.
And the absurd, yet significant, feeling came to him that the beast
divined his thought, his anxiety, his dread, and was now showing him, as
well as it could, that it entertained no hostile feeling and did not
meditate attack.
He turned the canoe toward the shore; he landed; he cooked his supper in
the dusk; the animal made no sign. Not far away it certainly lay and
watched, but it did not advance. And to Hyde, observant now in a new
way, came one sharp, vivid reminder of the strange atmosphere into which
his commonplace personality had strayed: he suddenly recalled that his
relations with the beast, already established, had progressed distinctly
a stage further. This startled him, yet without the accompanying
alarm he must certainly have felt twenty-four hours before. He had an
understanding with the wolf. He was aware of friendly thoughts toward
it. He even went so far as to set out a few big fish on the spot where
he had first seen it sitting the previous night. "If he comes," he
thought, "he is welcome to them. I've got plenty, anyway." He thought of
it now as "he."
Yet the wolf made no appearance until he was in the act of entering
his tent a good deal later. It was close on ten o'clock, whereas nine
was his hour, and late at that, for turning in. He had, therefore,
unconsciously been waiting for him. Then, as he was closing the flap, he
saw the eyes close to where he had placed the fish. He waited, hiding
himself, and expecting to hear sounds of munching jaws; but all was
silence. Only the eyes glowed steadily out of the background of pitch
darkness. He closed the flap. He had no slightest fear. In ten minutes
he was sound asleep.
He could not have slept very long, for when he woke up he could see the
shine of a faint red light through the canvas, and the fire had not died
down completely. He rose and cautiously peeped out. The air was very
cold; he saw his breath. But he also saw the wolf, for it had come in,
and was sitting by the dying embers, not two yards away from where he
crouched behind the flap. And this time, at these very close quarters,
there was something in the attitude of the big wild thing that caught
his attention with a vivid thrill of startled surprise and a sudden
shock of cold that held him spellbound. He stared, unable to believe his
eyes; for the wolf's attitude conveyed to him something familiar that at
first he was unable to explain. Its pose reached him in the terms of
another thing with which he was entirely at home. What was it? Did his
senses betray him? Was he still asleep and dreaming?
Then, suddenly, with a start of uncanny recognition, he knew. Its
attitude was that of a dog. Having found the clue, his mind then made
an awful leap. For it was, after all, no dog its appearance aped, but
something nearer to himself, and more familiar still. Good heavens!
It sat there with the pose, the attitude, the gesture in repose of
something almost human. And then, with a second shock of biting wonder,
it came to him like a revelation. The wolf sat beside that camp-fire as
a man might sit.