No sound but their voices and the soft roar of the flames made
itself heard. Only, from time to time, something soft as the flutter of
a pine moth's wings went past them through the air. No one seemed
anxious to go to bed. The hours slipped towards midnight.
"The legend is picturesque enough," observed the doctor after one of the
longer pauses, speaking to break it rather than because he had anything
to say, "for the Wendigo is simply the Call of the Wild personified,
which some natures hear to their own destruction."
"That's about it," Hank said presently. "An' there's no misunderstandin'
when you hear it. It calls you by name right 'nough."
Another pause followed. Then Dr. Cathcart came back to the forbidden
subject with a rush that made the others jump.
"The allegory _is_ significant," he remarked, looking about him into the
darkness, "for the Voice, they say, resembles all the minor sounds of
the Bush--wind, falling water, cries of the animals, and so forth. And,
once the victim hears _that_--he's off for good, of course! His most
vulnerable points, moreover, are said to be the feet and the eyes; the
feet, you see, for the lust of wandering, and the eyes for the lust of
beauty. The poor beggar goes at such a dreadful speed that he bleeds
beneath the eyes, and his feet burn."
Dr. Cathcart, as he spoke, continued to peer uneasily into the
surrounding gloom.
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