"What is that?" said Kendrick in a low voice.
"It's a new one on me," muttered McCorquodale in an awed tone.
"Sounds like an Indian drum. Listen. There it is again."
As they advanced the intermittent drumming increased in volume. Presently above the trees they could see a glow in the sky. The reflection of what seemed to be a huge bonfire grew so strong that they left the logging trail for fear of discovery and stole forward cautiously through the woods.
Rappa-tappa-tap-tap . . . tap-tap! RAP-tappety-tap-tap . . . tap-tap!
A medley of many voices rose in a weird chant which struck across the night like the wall of some stricken victim of the loup garou. It fell away abruptly and the drumming noise renewed.
Turning sharply to the right to get well away from the tote road,
Kendrick and his companion crept at last to the edge of the clearing
and took refuge in a hollow where a fallen tree hid them completely.
From behind this shelter they peered forth upon a strange scene.
In front of the bunk house, cook shanty, stables, sealer's shanty and other low log buildings that once had been a lumber-camp, was an open space, about two acres in extent, lighted up like day by a bonfire at each end. In the centre, alongside a stump, his figure boldly revealed by the firelight, stood a man with dishevelled hair and a stubby growth of black whisker. He wore the corduroys and Strathcona boots of a shantyman; about his waist was a bright red scarf. Inverted upon the stump was an empty wooden box and in each hand he flourished an empty whisky bottle.
Seated upon the ground in a semi-circle were nine of the roughest looking men Phil ever had seen, each with a piece of broken pine box across his knees and a whisky bottle or a short stick in either hand. Some of them were undoubtedly half-breeds, swarthy of skin and very unkempt; some bore the scars of knife wounds on their faces—riff-raff of the cities mixed with the off-scourings of railway and lumber camps. The whole motley crew were in various stages of drunkenness and it was evident that the whisky-traders' song they were singing appealed to them as about the funniest and most musical thing they ever had enjoyed, for each man tried to outdo his neighbor in the vim which he put into his efforts. The leader by the stump had cursed them into realization of the grave importance of pounding the accompaniment in proper unison, and after much practice had got them into some semblance of accord.
"Now fer the last time, fellers!" he shouted, and away they went: