" 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 severely
edited. "I propose," he added, "that we start out at once an' hunt for'm
like hell!"
The gloom of Defago'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 flattened 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 hemlock...."
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 distress.
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