Plunging ahead, he took up the trail, less distinct now, in the masked light of the moon and stars. If he were to see his game again, he had no time to lose. The trail now doubled back toward the swamp, and the moon and stars were soon gone. The frenzied hunter was forced to bend low to distinguish the tracks which zigzagged through low cedar and spruce. Time and again he tripped and fell as he forced his way headlong through the brush on the flank of the swamp. Then he ran into a network of tracks leading in all directions, utterly obliterating the fresh trail he followed. The wily brute had doubled back to his starting-point that night, where his trail would be lost. The game was up.
Soon even his own back tracks were indistinguishable, so with a wide circle through the swamp the disappointed trapper turned homeward. But in his defeat there was ground for hope. He had seen the thing in the life, unmistakably; shot at it, and learned that it feared the man on its trail. Instead of raging at him with teeth and claws, or loosing upon its helpless victim the black terrors of the old Cree's tale, this Windigo, devil, or what you will, had travelled like a bull caribou for the safety of the swamp. Elated at the thought, the Frenchman laughed loudly; beast or evil spirit, it had no magic for the rifle-bullet of François Hertel. Some day luck would turn, some day a wail should rise in the valley that would wake even the sleeping bears in their dens. It would be the death-cry of M'sieu' Weendigo.
At the shack he found his wife keeping sleepless
