“It’s hard to say, Duff.” Gildersleeve got up and paced the floor. “He must have met with some accident; twisted an ankle in the windfalls, fallen over a cliff, or else—well, it’s hard to say—”
He stopped in his tracks as a scraping thud resounded at the cabin door.
Duff lurched to his feet as the door sprang open and the bedraggled figure of a man thrust itself across the threshold accompanied by a welter of flying rain that spattered across the floor to the wall beyond.
“Lynch!” gasped Gildersleeve.
“That’s me—least—what’s left—of me,” asserted the newcomer between panting gasps as he crowded the door shut.
He was a wiry-looking little man with a face like a rat; beady eyes back of an insignificant nose, high upper lip and receding chin. He immediately proceeded to divest himself of his reefer and boots and stood up a-drip and steaming by the sheet-iron stove.
“That’s right, Lynch,” approved Gildersleeve, “let your clothes dry on you, and you won’t catch cold. Here, have a bolt of Scotch.” He poured out a stout bracer from a silver pocket-flask into a metal cup and handed it to Lynch who downed it neat at a gulp, his beady eyes glittering. “There,” said Gildersleeve, “that’ll make a new man of you, Lynch. How is it you didn’t strike out for camp before it got dark and the storm came up?”
“Got lost,” explained Lynch. “Didn’t notice it was getting late until it was near sun-down. Tried to make a short cut through the bush to the creek and lost my bearings in that rotten mess. Couldn’t see the sun or a blessed thing to guide me out. Struggled in all kinds of circles through windfalls breast-high and every time I’d stop for breath I’d hear sneaking sounds all round me like things watching for me to fall so they could jump me while I was down.
“Then—then—I heard a horrible yell. No, it wasn’t a yell either; it was like wailing and laughing all mixed up. It made my blood run cold. I can hear it yet.
“Ugh!” He shuddered. “I don’t know which was the worst—floundering round in the windfalls or coming down the trail in the hurricane with deadfalls smashing down in the wind everywhere. I nearly got mine with falling timber a dozen times, and every ten steps or so I’d go flying on my face in the muck. I wouldn’t go through it again for a hundred thousand.”