Now, while Crawford smoked and pondered temptation, and the Mohegan picked over dry wood, and Perrot lay in exhausted coma, there came quavering up through the trees from far away a thin, queer cry. That high cry sent a shiver over Crawford, for it was foreign to his limited northland experience, with its uncanny cadence of shaking mirth, its hint of weird and unearthly laughter. He had never before heard the call of a loon. Black Kettle stood like a dog pointing birds, but for a very different reason; the Mohegan had never before heard the call of a loon at high twelve.
“What was that?” asked Crawford. Black Kettle wrinkled up his nose.
“That,” he said, putting hand to powder-horn, “was the cry of a bird, which came from the throat of a man.”
Crawford saw that the redskin was puzzled and alarmed, so asked no more questions. He loaded and primed his gun, and came to his feet. Once again that strange cry reached them, and this time it was much closer. Crawford distinctly saw the Mohegan shiver to the sound of it, as though reading something singular and terrible in the cry.
Black Kettle gestured. Crawford followed him out from camp among the trees. He soon realized that the other was retracing their trail of the morning; it was an easy one to follow, because of Perrot’s heavily plunging tracks. A third time lifted that quavering call, now so close upon them that Black Kettle made a startled gesture and vanished from sight among the trees. Crawford waited, peering through the dead brown masses of a fallen pine.
A moment of waiting—then a man came into sight, following the trail. But what a man! He was a misshapen Indian, with a huge head set between wide shoulders, a shaven scalp, and a fearful caricature of a face; it was the distorted countenance of an idiot. His dress was peculiar and remarkable, being composed of snake-skins sewn over hide, the heads hanging intact. Once seen, this hideous creature could never be forgotten—and perhaps this fact was the reason for such a costume. The wilderness is a stickler for simple and logical causes of apparently remarkable effects.
Although he certainly could not see either of the hidden men, the demented redskin now came to a sudden halt. He peered around, lifted that horrible countenance, and sniffed the air. A loose grin came to his lips. He spoke aloud in a mingled Cree and English which was comprehensible to Crawford.
“Where are you, Wandering Star? I bring you a talking bark, a message from afar. I am Singing Loon, and no man harms me because my medicine is very strong. The Stone Men are afraid to hurt me. Where are you, Wandering Star? I can smell you close by. I have followed your trail a long way from the lodges of the Crees.”
This, in effect, was one of those unhappy beings whom the red men believed touched by the Great Spirit, and from whom they shrank in fear and awe; none of them, at any cost, would lift a finger to harm this man. Crawford did not hesitate, but laid down his gun and stepped out to face the messenger.
“So here you are, Wandering Star!”