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 harbor foolish fancies, and he marveled 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 reveled 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 the act of taking
it off the hook, when the deep silence of the evening was curiously
disturbed. He became abruptly aware that some one 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 dripped 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 some one 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
[Illustration: =“The feeling stole over him without the slightest
warning. He was not alone.”=] (_page 60_)
the certainty remained. Absurd as it was, he felt positive that some
one watched him with concentrated and intent regard. Every fiber 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 some one 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, or 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 some one 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 bed-time. 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 certainty 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 ax, 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
“shoed” it, but without effect; it did not budge. He did not waste
another good log on it, for his fear was dissipated now, and 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 forever, 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 cozy 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,[27] 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 Scot!” he exclaimed aloud, “why, it's
like looking at a human being!” And 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 behavior 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 marvelous 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.
Before he could weigh his extraordinary discovery, before he could
examine it in detail or with care, the animal, sitting in this
ghastly fashion, seemed to feel his eyes fixed on it. It slowly
turned and looked him in the face, and for the first time Hyde felt a
full-blooded, superstitious fear flood through his entire being. He
seemed transfixed with that nameless terror that is said to attack
human beings who suddenly face the dead, finding themselves bereft of
speech and movement. This moment of paralysis certainly occurred. Its
passing, however, was as singular as its advent. For almost at once he
was aware of something beyond and above this mockery of human attitude
and pose, something that ran along unaccustomed nerves and reached
his feeling, even perhaps his heart. The revulsion was extraordinary,
its result still more extraordinary and unexpected. Yet the fact
remains. He was aware of another thing that had the effect of stilling
his terror as soon as it was born. He was aware of appeal, silent,
half-expressed, yet vastly pathetic. He saw in the savage eyes a
beseeching, even a yearning, expression that changed his mood as by
magic from dread to natural sympathy. The great gray brute, symbol of
cruel ferocity, sat there beside his dying fire and appealed for help.
This gulf betwixt animal and human seemed in that instant bridged. It
was, of course, incredible. Hyde, sleep still possibly clinging to his
inner being with the shades and half-shapes of dream yet about his
soul, acknowledged, how he knew not, the amazing fact. He found himself
nodding to the brute in half-consent, and instantly, without more ado,
the lean gray shape rose like a wraith and trotted off swiftly, but
with stealthy tread into the background of the night.
When Hyde woke in the morning his first impression was that he must
have dreamed the entire incident. His practical nature asserted itself.
There was a bite in the fresh autumn air; the bright sun allowed no
half-lights anywhere; he felt brisk in mind and body. Reviewing what
had happened, he came to the conclusion that it was utterly vain to
speculate; no possible explanation of the animal's behavior occurred to
him: he was dealing with something entirely outside his experience. His
fear, however, had completely left him. The odd sense of friendliness
remained. The beast had a definite purpose, and he himself was included
in that purpose. His sympathy held good.
But with the sympathy there was also an intense curiosity. “If it shows
itself again,” he told himself, “I'll go up close and find out what it
wants.” The fish laid out the night before had not been touched.
It must have been a full hour after breakfast when he next saw the
brute; it was standing on the edge of the clearing, looking at him
in the way now become familiar. Hyde immediately picked up his ax
and advanced toward it boldly, keeping his eyes fixed straight upon
its own. There was nervousness in him, but kept well under; nothing
betrayed it; step by step he drew nearer until some ten yards separated
them. The wolf had not stirred a muscle as yet. Its jaws hung open, its
eyes observed him intently; it allowed him to approach without a sign
of what its mood might be. Then, with these ten yards between them,
it turned abruptly and moved slowly off, looking back first over one
shoulder and then over the other, exactly as a dog might do, to see if
he was following.