And this doubtless explains why he found it so hard to tell that group round the fire—everything. He told enough, however, for the immediate decision to be arrived at that a relief party must start at the earliest possible moment, and that Simpson, in order to guide it capably, must first have food and, above all, sleep. Dr. Cathcart observing the lad's condition more shrewdly than his patient knew, gave him a very slight injection of morphine. For six hours he slept like the dead.
From the description carefully written out afterwards by this student of divinity, it appears that the account he gave to the astonished group omitted sundry7 vital and important details. He declares that, with his uncle's wholesome8, matter-of-fact countenance9 staring him in the face, he simply had not the courage to mention them. Thus, all the search party gathered, it would seem, was that Défago had suffered in the night an acute and inexplicable10 attack of mania11, had imagined himself "called" by someone or something, and had plunged12 into the bush after it without food or rifle, where he must die a horrible and lingering death by cold and starvation unless he could be found and rescued in time. "In time," moreover, meant at once.
In the course of the following day, however—they were off by seven, leaving Punk in charge with instructions to have food and fire always ready—Simpson found it possible to tell his uncle a good deal more of the story's true inwardness, without divining that it was drawn13 out of him as a matter of fact by a very subtle form of cross examination. By the time they reached the beginning of the trail, where the canoe was laid up against the return journey, he had mentioned how Défago spoke14 vaguely of "something he called a 'Wendigo'"; how he cried in his sleep; how he imagined an unusual scent15 about the camp; and had betrayed other symptoms of mental excitement. He also admitted the bewildering effect of "that extraordinary odor" upon himself, "pungent17 and acrid18 like the odor of lions." And by the time they were within an easy hour of Fifty Island Water he had let slip the further fact—a foolish avowal19 of his own hysterical20 condition, as he felt afterwards—that he had heard the vanished guide call "for help." He omitted the singular phrases used, for he simply could not bring himself to repeat the preposterous21 language. Also, while describing how the man's footsteps in the snow had gradually assumed an exact miniature likeness22 of the animal's plunging23 tracks, he left out the fact that they measured a wholly incredible distance. It seemed a question, nicely balanced between individual pride and honesty, what he should reveal and what suppress. He mentioned the fiery24 tinge25 in the snow, for instance, yet shrank from telling that body and bed had been partly dragged out of the tent....
With the net result that Dr. Cathcart, adroit26 psychologist that he fancied himself to be, had assured him clearly enough exactly where his mind, influenced by loneliness, bewilderment and terror, had yielded to the strain and invited delusion27. While praising his conduct, he managed at the same time to point out where, when, and how his mind had gone astray. He made his nephew think himself finer than he was by judicious28 praise, yet more foolish than he was by minimizing the value of the evidence. Like many another materialist29, that is, he lied cleverly on the basis of insufficient30 knowledge, because the knowledge supplied seemed to his own particular intelligence inadmissible.
"The spell of these terrible solitudes31," he said, "cannot leave any mind untouched, any mind, that is, possessed32 of the higher imaginative qualities. It has worked upon yours exactly as it worked upon my own when I was your age. The animal that haunted your little camp was undoubtedly33 a moose, for the 'belling' of a moose may have, sometimes, a very peculiar34 quality of sound. The colored appearance of the big tracks was obviously a defect of vision in your own eyes produced by excitement. The size and stretch of the tracks we shall prove when we come to them. But the hallucination of an audible voice, of course, is one of the commonest forms of delusion due to mental excitement—an excitement, my dear boy, perfectly35 excusable, and, let me add, wonderfully controlled by you under the circumstances. For the rest, I am bound to say, you have acted with a splendid courage, for the terror of feeling oneself lost in this wilderness36 is nothing short of awful, and, had I been in your place, I don't for a moment believe I could have behaved with one quarter of your wisdom and decision. The only thing I find it uncommonly37 difficult to explain is—that—damned odor."
"It made me feel sick, I assure you," declared his nephew, "positively38 dizzy!" His uncle's attitude of calm omniscience39, merely because he knew more psychological formulae, made him slightly defiant40. It was so easy to be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personally witnessed. "A kind of desolate41 and terrible odor is the only way I can describe it," he concluded, glancing at the features of the quiet, unemotional man beside him.
"I can only marvel," was the reply, "that under the circumstances it did not seem to you even worse." The dry words, Simpson knew, hovered42 between the truth, and his uncle's interpretation43 of "the truth."
And so at last they came to the little camp and found the tent still standing44, the remains45 of the fire, and the piece of paper pinned to a stake beside it—untouched. The cache, poorly contrived46 by inexperienced hands, however, had been discovered and opened—by musk47 rats, mink48 and squirrel. The matches lay scattered49 about the opening, but the food had been taken to the last crumb50.
"Well, fellers, he ain't here," exclaimed Hank loudly after his fashion. "And that's as sartain as the coal supply down below! But whar he's got to by this time is 'bout16 as unsartain as the trade in crowns in t'other place." The presence of a divinity student was no barrier to his language at such a time, though for the reader's sake it may be severely51 edited. "I propose," he added, "that we start out at once an' hunt for'm like hell!"
The gloom of Défago's probable fate oppressed the whole party with a sense of dreadful gravity the moment they saw the familiar signs of recent occupancy. Especially the tent, with the bed of balsam branches still smoothed and flattened52 by the pressure of his body, seemed to bring his presence near to them. Simpson, feeling vaguely as if his world were somehow at stake, went about explaining particulars in a hushed tone. He was much calmer now, though overwearied with the strain of his many journeys. His uncle's method of explaining—"explaining away," rather—the details still fresh in his haunted memory helped, too, to put ice upon his emotions.
"And that's the direction he ran off in," he said to his two companions, pointing in the direction where the guide had vanished that morning in the grey dawn. "Straight down there he ran like a deer, in between the birch and the hemlock53...."
Hank and Dr. Cathcart exchanged glances.
"And it was about two miles down there, in a straight line," continued the other, speaking with something of the former terror in his voice, "that I followed his trail to the place where—it stopped—dead!"
"And where you heered him callin' an' caught the stench, an' all the rest of the wicked entertainment," cried Hank, with a volubility that betrayed his keen distress54.
"And where your excitement overcame you to the point of producing illusions," added Dr. Cathcart under his breath, yet not so low that his nephew did not hear it.
It was early in the afternoon, for they had traveled quickly, and there were still a good two hours of daylight left. Dr. Cathcart and Hank lost no time in beginning the search, but Simpson was too exhausted55 to accompany them. They would follow the blazed marks on the trees, and where possible, his footsteps. Meanwhile the best thing he could do was to keep a good fire going, and rest.
But after something like three hours' search, the darkness already down, the two men returned to camp with nothing to report. Fresh snow had covered all signs, and though they had followed the blazed trees to the spot where Simpson had turned back, they had not discovered the smallest indication of a human being—or for that matter, of an animal. There were no fresh tracks of any kind; the snow lay undisturbed.
It was difficult to know what was best to do, though in reality there was nothing more they could do. They might stay and search for weeks without much chance of success. The fresh snow destroyed their only hope, and they gathered round the fire for supper, a gloomy and despondent56 party. The facts, indeed, were sad enough, for Défago had a wife at Rat Portage, and his earnings57 were the family's sole means of support.
Now that the whole truth in all its ugliness was out, it seemed useless to deal in further disguise or pretense58. They talked openly of the facts and probabilities. It was not the first time, even in the experience of Dr. Cathcart, that a man had yielded to the singular seduction of the Solitudes and gone out of his mind; Défago, moreover, was predisposed to something of the sort, for he already had a touch of melancholia in his blood, and his fiber59 was weakened by bouts60 of drinking that often lasted for weeks at a time. Something on this trip—one might never know precisely61 what—had sufficed to push him over the line, that was all. And he had gone, gone off into the great wilderness of trees and lakes to die by starvation and exhaustion62. The chances against his finding camp again were overwhelming; the delirium63 that was upon him would also doubtless have increased, and it was quite likely he might do violence to himself and so hasten his cruel fate. Even while they talked, indeed, the end had probably come. On the suggestion of Hank, his old pal64, however, they proposed to wait a little longer and devote the whole of the following day, from dawn to darkness, to the most systematic65 search they could devise. They would divide the territory between them. They discussed their plan in great detail. All that men could do they would do. And, meanwhile, they talked about the particular form in which the singular Panic of the Wilderness had made its attack upon the mind of the unfortunate guide. Hank, though familiar with the legend in its general outline, obviously did not welcome the turn the conversation had taken. He contributed little, though that little was illuminating66. For he admitted that a story ran over all this section of country to the effect that several Indians had "seen the Wendigo" along the shores of Fifty Island Water in the "fall" of last year, and that this was the true reason of Défago's disinclination to hunt there. Hank doubtless felt that he had in a sense helped his old pal to death by overpersuading him. "When an Indian goes crazy," he explained, talking to himself more than to the others, it seemed, "it's always put that he's 'seen the Wendigo.' An' pore old Défaygo was superstitious67 down to he very heels ...!"
And then Simpson, feeling the atmosphere more sympathetic, told over again the full story of his astonishing tale; he left out no details this time; he mentioned his own sensations and gripping fears. He only omitted the strange language used.
"But Défago surely had already told you all these details of the Wendigo legend, my dear fellow," insisted the doctor. "I mean, he had talked about it, and thus put into your mind the ideas which your own excitement afterwards developed?"
Whereupon Simpson again repeated the facts. Défago, he declared, had barely mentioned the beast. He, Simpson, knew nothing of the story, and, so far as he remembered, had never even read about it. Even the word was unfamiliar68.
Of course he was telling the truth, and Dr. Cathcart was reluctantly compelled to admit the singular character of the whole affair. He did not do this in words so much as in manner, however. He kept his back against a good, stout69 tree; he poked70 the fire into a blaze the moment it showed signs of dying down; he was quicker than any of them to notice the least sound in the night about them—a fish jumping in the lake, a twig71 snapping in the bush, the dropping of occasional fragments of frozen snow from the branches overhead where the heat loosened them. His voice, too, changed a little in quality, becoming a shade less confident, lower also in tone. Fear, to put it plainly, hovered close about that little camp, and though all three would have been glad to speak of other matters, the only thing they seemed able to discuss was this—the source of their fear. They tried other subjects in vain; there was nothing to say about them. Hank was the most honest of the group; he said next to nothing. He never once, however, turned his back to the darkness. His face was always to the forest, and when wood was needed he didn't go farther than was necessary to get it.
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1
prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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3
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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4
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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5
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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6
reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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7
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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8
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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9
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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10
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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11
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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12
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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13
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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14
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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15
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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16
bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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17
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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19
avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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20
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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21
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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22
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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23
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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24
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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25
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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26
adroit
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| adj.熟练的，灵巧的 | |
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27
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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28
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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materialist
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| n. 唯物主义者 | |
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30
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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31
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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32
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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34
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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36
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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38
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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39
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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40
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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41
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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42
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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43
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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44
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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45
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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46
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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47
musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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48
mink
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| n.貂，貂皮 | |
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49
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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50
crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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51
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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52
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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53
hemlock
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| n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉 | |
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54
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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55
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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56
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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57
earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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58
pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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59
fiber
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| n.纤维，纤维质 | |
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bouts
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| n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作 | |
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61
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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62
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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63
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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64
pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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65
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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66
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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67
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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68
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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70
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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71
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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