ssed saplings rubbing together; thunderings, which were only
some smaller trees beating against a great hollow trunk when a strong
wind veered from a certain direction. But this Indian woman must know
all such sounds well; and to her the Drum was something distinct from
them. The woman specified that now.

"You'll know the Drum when you hear it."

Constance grew suddenly cold. For twenty lives, the woman said, the
Drum had beat; that meant to her, and to Constance too now, that seven
were left. Indefinite, desperate denial that all from the ferry must
be dead--that denial which had been strengthened by the news that at
least one boat had been adrift near Beaver--altered in Constance to
conviction of a boat with seven men from the ferry, seven dying,
perhaps, but not yet dead. Seven out of twenty-seven! The score were
gone; the Drum had beat for them in little groups as they had died.
When the Drum beat again, would it beat beyond the score?

The woman drew back and closed the door; the water was hot now, and she
made the tea and poured a cup for Constance. As she drank it,
Constance was listening for the Drum; the woman too was listening.
Having finished the tea, Constance returned to the door and reopened
it; the sounds outside were the same. A solitary figure appeared
moving along the edge of the ice--the figure of a tall man, walking on
snowshoes; moonlight distorted the figure, and it was muffled too in a
great coat which made it unrecognizable. He halted and stood looking
out at the lake and then, with a sudden movement, strode on; he halted
again, and now Constance got the knowledge that he was not looking; he
was listening as she was. He was not merely listening; his body swayed
and bent to a rhythm--he was counting something that he heard.
Constance strained her ears; but she could hear no sound except those
of the waters and the wind.

"Is the Drum sounding now?" she asked the woman.

"No."

Constance gazed again at the man and found his motion quite
unmistakable; he was counting--if not counting something that he heard,
or thought he heard, he was recounting and reviewing within himself
something that he had heard before--some irregular rhythm which had
become so much a part of him that it sounded now continually within his
own brain; so that, instinctively, he moved in cadence to it. He
stepped forward again now, and turned toward the house.

Her breath caught as she spoke to the woman. "M