“That night our cabin was very quiet, like this, for the sleet was a little pleasant sound, and ole Pierre was dreaming of old hunts, and I was on the floor with the traps, when both the dog and I were brought out of our thoughts by a wild cry, very faint and far away, but as sharp and sudden as a cut of lightning on a summer night.
“The hair on the back of my neck rises just like ole Pierre's, for I know it is the werewolf. And he looks at me and whines, for he knows it, too. I rush and light a second candle, though I have not too many, and look out the pane. But of course, there is nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard, except the moaning of wind in the dark. Yet later I hear a noise, very weak, very unsteady, as if a person was approaching.
“Ole Pierre howls low in his throat and scratches on the door. I reprove him: 'Are you possessed, ole Pierre? There is no soul within sixty—seventy miles. And you and I have done nothing that should let the werewolf in.'
“But it was fearful hearing that stealthy approach, stopping long, then many steps, and a groan. I get out the Bible and read fast. But there comes a tap-tap at the door, and I tremble so the book almost falls from my hand, and ole Pierre, he calls to his saints, too.
“What is the use of looking out, for who can see a werewolf?
“Presently there is no noise. The tap-tap stops; and except for a noise as of a bundle of something dropping against the door, there is nothing to hear except the dull sleet on the eaves, ole Pierre crying in his throat, and the trip-trip of my heart that goes like a werewolf pounding on my ribs. A voice inside me says open the door. But another voice says 'That is a werewolf trick and you will be carried away, Prunier.' Twenty times my hand is on the bolt.
“At last I can stand it no longer,—that voice inside saying to me to open,—and I rush to it and throw it open before I have time to think, and a body falls in, against my legs. A long, thin body it is, and I hesitate to touch it, for a werewolf can take any form. But a groan comes from it, and I have not the heart to push it out into the dark. I prop it by the fire and its eyes droop open. 'Food—tie up food.' That is the first word it says.
“I push some medicine for weakness into his mouth, and his life comes back little by little. 'You must take food to her,' he says; and soon again, 'The ship by Smoky Pool—she starves in it—my sister.'
“Indeed, I soon saw that he was faint from long travel and no feeding, and perhaps a sickness past thrown in, for he faints much between parts of his account. But I gather the news that he had come very far from some deserted ship in which a sister was starving to death; and alone, since his three partners had cleared out. He begged of me to leave him and take food for her. He cried out that he was dying, and I had to believe him; for death's shadows sat at the entrance to his eyes. I made him glad by placing bread beside him, and by putting on my Mackinaw and the pack after it, in which I had put food.
“A fever of uneasiness stirred him between faints until I had lit a lantern and called to ole Pierre to follow. Then joy shone in his worn eyes, and a blessing on us both followed us out into the icy night.