"None of us can stand this much longer ...!" It was the cry of
instinct over reason.
And then "Defago," smiling _whitely_, answered in that thin and fading
voice that already seemed passing over into a sound of quite another
character--
"I seen that great Wendigo thing," he whispered, sniffing the air about
him exactly like an animal. "I been with it too--"
Whether the poor devil would have said more, or whether Dr. Cathcart
would have continued the impossible cross examination cannot be known,
for at that moment the voice of Hank was heard yelling at the top of his
voice from behind the canvas that concealed all but his terrified eyes.
Such a howling was never heard.
"His feet! Oh, Gawd, his feet! Look at his great changed--feet!"
Defago, shuffling where he sat, had moved in such a way that for the
first time his legs were in full light and his feet were visible. Yet
Simpson had no time, himself, to see properly what Hank had seen. And
Hank has never seen fit to tell. That same instant, with a leap like
that of a frightened tiger, Cathcart was upon him, bundling the folds of
blanket about his legs with such speed that the young student caught
little more than a passing glimpse of something dark and oddly massed
where moccasined feet ought to have been, and saw even that but with
uncertain vision.
Then, before the doctor had time to do more, or Simpson time to even
think a question, much less ask it, Defago was standing upright in front
of them, balancing with pain and difficulty, and upon his shapeless and
twisted visage an expression so dark and so malicious that it was, in
the true sense, monstrous.
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