RUNNING WOLF
By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
(1869—). An English author and journalist. He is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. For a time he was on the staff of the New York Sun, and of the New York Times. He is the author of The Lost Valley; Paris Garden; A Prisoner in Fairyland; The Starlight Express. He writes with strongly suggestive power.
The legend and its origin and development, are well illustrated in the story of Running Wolf. Some hundred years before the story begins, so the author says, certain tragic events had occurred in the Canadian backwoods. From those events had grown beliefs held by all who lived within the region. The author very cleverly makes his story a continuation of the legend.
Running Wolf deals not only with the beliefs of a primitive people but also with the supernatural. It suggests an unhappy, wandering spirit unable to escape from the chains of earth. In its treatment of the supernatural the story is surpassingly powerful. It gains every effect through the power of suggestion. At no time does the story, in so many words, say that the supernatural is present. Instead, it places the reader in a position where it is natural to infer something beyond the ordinary. In other words, the story does what life does: it presents facts and leaves people to draw their own conclusions.
Over the entire story hangs an atmosphere entirely in keeping with the events narrated. The reader feels drawn into the solemn silence of the vast forest; he knows the loneliness of little-visited lakes, and the black terror that surrounds a wilderness camp-fire at night.
The story is rich with foreshadowing, sentence after sentence pointing toward the climax and emphasizing the single effect that is produced.
Because of its hauntingly suggestive power Running Wolf is a remarkable story of the supernatural.
“Loneliness in a backwoods camp brings charm, pleasure, and a happy sense of calm until, and unless, it comes too near. Once it has crept within short distance, however, it may easily cross the narrow line between comfort and discomfort.”
The man who enjoys an adventure outside the general experience of the race, and imparts it to others, must not be surprised if he is taken for either a liar or a fool, as Malcolm Hyde, hotel clerk on a holiday, discovered in due course. Nor is “enjoy” the right word to use in describing his emotions; the word he chose was probably “survive.”