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Updated: May 26, 2025
It was a sound of weeping; Défago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the darkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed against his mouth to stifle it. And his first feeling, before he could think or reflect, was the rush of a poignant and searching tenderness. This intimate, human sound, heard amid the desolation about them, woke pity.
And now that he was about to plunge beyond even the fringe of wilderness where they were camped into the virgin heart of uninhabited regions as vast as Europe itself, the true nature of the situation stole upon him with an effect of delight and awe that his imagination was fully capable of appreciating. It was himself and Défago against a multitude at least, against a Titan!
To make it carry even beyond an ordinary cry he interrupted its rhythm by shaking the palm of his hand before his mouth. "That's for Défago," he said, looking down at the other two with a queer, defiant laugh, "for it's my belief" the sandwiched oaths may be omitted "that my ole partner's not far from us at this very minute."
With that wilderness of trees about him, the sheet of water cutting him off behind, and the horror of that wild cry in his blood, he did what any other inexperienced man would have done in similar bewilderment: he ran about, without any sense of direction, like a frantic child, and called loudly without ceasing the name of the guide: "Défago! Défago!
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. "Sing us a song, Défago, if you're not too tired," he asked; "one of those old voyageur songs you sang the other night."
"Défago, tell us what's happened just a little, so that we can know how best to help you?" he asked in a tone of authority, almost of command. And at that point, it was command. At once afterwards, however, it changed in quality, for the figure turned up to him a face so piteous, so terrible and so little like humanity, that the doctor shrank back from him as from something spiritually unclean.
Presently he heard his regular and quiet breathing, and putting his hand again gently on the breast, felt the steady rise and fall beneath. "Let me know if anything's wrong," he whispered, "or if I can do anything. Wake me at once if you feel queer." He hardly knew what to say. He lay down again, thinking and wondering what it all meant. Défago, of course, had been crying in his sleep.
Yet a rushing passionate curiosity overcame his better judgment, and his fear. Défago turned swiftly and looked at him as though he were suddenly about to shriek. His eyes shone, but his mouth was wide open.
Taking food, matches and rifle with him, and a small axe to blaze the trees against his return journey, he set forth. It was eight o'clock when he started, the sun shining over the tops of the trees in a sky without clouds. Pinned to a stake by the fire he left a note in case Défago returned while he was away.
Défago!" he yelled, and the trees gave him back the name as often as he shouted, only a little softened "Défago! Défago! Défago!" He followed the trail that lay a short distance across the patches of snow, and then lost it again where the trees grew too thickly for snow to lie.
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