By
the time they reached the beginning of the trail, where the canoe was
laid up against the return journey, he had mentioned how Defago spoke
vaguely of "something he called a 'Wendigo'"; how he cried in his sleep;
how he imagined an unusual scent about the camp; and had betrayed other
symptoms of mental excitement. He also admitted the bewildering effect
of "that extraordinary odor" upon himself, "pungent and acrid 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 avowal of his
own hysterical 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 preposterous
language. Also, while describing how the man's footsteps in the snow had
gradually assumed an exact miniature likeness of the animal's plunging
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
fiery tinge 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, adroit 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 delusion.
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