The dusk rapidly deepened; the glades grew dark; the crackling of

the fire and the wash of little waves along the rocky lake shore were

the only sounds audible. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in all

that vast world of branches nothing stirred. Any moment, it seemed, the

woodland gods, who are to be worshipped in silence and loneliness,

might stretch their mighty and terrific outlines among the trees. In

front, through doorways pillared by huge straight stems, lay the

stretch of Fifty Island Water, a crescent-shaped lake some fifteen

miles from tip to tip, and perhaps five miles across where they were

camped. A sky rose and saffron, more clear than any atmosphere Simpson

had ever known, still dropped its pale streaming fires across the

waves, where the islands — a hundred, surely, rather than fifty -floated like the fairy barques of some enchanted fleet. Fringed with

pines, whose crests fingered most delicately the sky, they almost

seemed to move upwards as the light faded — about to weigh anchor and

navigate the pathways of the heavens instead of the currents of their

native and desolate lake.

And strips of coloured cloud, like flaunting pennons, signalled

their departure to the stars… .

The beauty of the scene was strangely uplifting. Simpson smoked the

fish and burnt his fingers into the bargain in his efforts to enjoy it

and at the same time tend the frying-pan and the fire. Yet, ever at the

back of his thoughts, lay that other aspect of the wilderness: the

indifference to human life, the merciless spirit of desolation which

took no note of man. The sense of his utter loneliness, now that even

Defago had gone, came close as he looked about him and listened for the

sound of his companion’s returning footsteps.

There was pleasure in the sensation, yet with it a perfectly

comprehensible alarm. And instinctively the thought stirred in him:

“What should I — could I, do — if anything happened and he did not

come back — ?”

They enjoyed their well-earned supper, eating untold quantities of

fish, and drinking unmilked tea strong enough to kill men who had not

covered thirty miles of hard “going,” eating little on the way. And

when it was over, they smoked and told stories round the blazing fire,

laughing, stretching weary limbs, and discussing plans for the morrow.

Defago was in excellent spirits, though disappointed at having no signs

of moose to report. But it was dark and he had not gone far. The brule,

too, was bad. His clothes and hands were smeared with charcoal.

Simpson, watching him, realized with renewed vividness their position

— alone together in the wilderness.

“Defago,” he said presently, “these woods, you know, are a bit too

big to feel quite at home in — to feel comfortable in, I mean! …

Eh?” He merely gave expression to the mood of the moment; he was hardly

prepared for the earnestness, the solemnity even, with which the guide

took him up.

“You’ve hit it right, Simpson, boss,” he replied, fixing his

searching brown eyes on his face, “and that’s the truth, sure. There’s

no end to ‘em — no end at all.” Then he added in a lowered tone as if

to himself, “There’s lots found out that, and gone plumb to pieces!”

But the man’s gravity of manner was not quite to the other’s

liking; it was a little too suggestive for this scenery and setting; he

was sorry he had broached the subject. He remembered suddenly how his

uncle had told him that men were sometimes stricken with a strange

fever of the wilderness, when the seduction of the uninhabited wastes

caught them so fiercely that they went forth, half fascinated, half

deluded, to their death. And he had a shrewd idea that his companion

held something in sympathy with that queer type. He led the

conversation on to other topics, on to Hank and the doctor, for

instance, and the natural rivalry as to who should get the first sight

of moose.

“If they went doo west,” observed Defago carelessly, “there’s sixty

miles between us now — with ole Punk at halfway house eatin’ himself

full to bustin’ with fish and coffee.” They laughed together over the

picture. But the casual mention of those sixty miles again made Simpson

realize the prodigious scale of this land where they hunted; sixty

miles was a mere step; two hundred little more than a step. Stories of

lost hunters rose persistently before his memory. The passion and

mystery of homeless and wandering men, seduced by the beauty of great

forests, swept his soul in a way too vivid to be quite pleasant. He

wondered vaguely whether it was the mood of his companion that invited

the unwelcome suggestion with such persistence.