Wendigo," he added, "is said to burn his feet--owing to the
friction, apparently caused by its tremendous velocity--till they drop
off, and new ones form exactly like its own."

Simpson listened in horrified amazement; but it was the pallor on Hank's
face that fascinated him most. He would willingly have stopped his ears
and closed his eyes, had he dared.

"It don't always keep to the ground neither," came in Hank's slow, heavy
drawl, "for it goes so high that he thinks the stars have set him all
a-fire. An' it'll take great thumpin' jumps sometimes, an' run along the
tops of the trees, carrying its partner with it, an' then droppin' him
jest as a fish hawk'll drop a pickerel to kill it before eatin'. An' its
food, of all the muck in the whole Bush is--moss!" And he laughed a
short, unnatural laugh. "It's a moss-eater, is the Wendigo," he added,
looking up excitedly into the faces of his companions. "Moss-eater," he
repeated, with a string of the most outlandish oaths he could invent.

But Simpson now understood the true purpose of all this talk. What
these two men, each strong and "experienced" in his own way, dreaded
more than anything else was--silence. They were talking against time.
They were also talking against darkness, against the invasion of panic,
against the admission reflection might bring that they were in an
enemy's country--against anything, in fact, rather than allow their
inmost thoughts to assume control. He himself, already initiated by the
awful vigil with terror, was beyond both of them in this respect. He had
reached the stage where he was immune. But these two, the scoffing,
analytical doctor, and the honest, dogged backwoodsman, each sat
trembling in the depths of his being.

Thus the hours passed; and thus, with lowered voices and a kind of taut
inner resistance of spirit, this little group of humanity sat in the
jaws of the wilderness and talked foolishly of the terrible and haunting
legend. It was an unequal contest, all things considered, for the
wilderness had already the advantage of first attack--and of a hostage.
The fate of their comrade hung over them with a steadily increasing
weight of oppression that finally became insupportable.

It was Hank, after a pause longer than the preceding ones that no one
seemed able to break, who first let loose all this pent-up emotion in
very unexpected fashion, by springing suddenly to his feet and letting
out the most ear-shattering yell imagina