In the pause in her own volubility, made for reply, she suddenly became conscious of an absolute silence, as of a vast void wherein nothing moved, or breathed, except herself. She shivered, and her spirits began to fall as rapidly as they had risen. Two explanations of this singular silence, both equally obnoxious, swept into her mind. Tom was trying to play a foolish practical joke; or else he had been drinking too much and leaned on the fence drowsing and unable to move.
She started back at a keen run when the sound of a man’s whistle cleft the stillness, arresting her steps and causing her to face about uncertainly. Tom was crunching over the snow towards her, swinging a lighted lantern and trilling like a mocking-bird.
Whatever shame he may have felt for his tardiness was effectually routed by his wife’s wild demand for her child, and the sight of her excitement when he, in his turn, inquired “what in thunder she meant?”
She threw up her hands with a cry that cut through him.
“You were thar!” she wailed. “Thar by the fence, just now, waitin’ for me. I seed you. An’ you took the baby whilst I turned myse’f loose from the bresh. Whar is he? If you’ve hid him in the snow he’ll catch his death. Quit foolin’, Tom, an’ git him for me! I’m skeered all to pieces anyhow, an’ can’t stan’ no such as that. Git him for me!”
Bewildered to the verge of idiocy, Tom protested his innocence. He had not seen the child since he left home that morning, and had no thought of joking. He had only just gotten there. Luck had been good, which made him late. Then he drew from her as connected an account of the occurrence as her excitement would allow, and suggested that, owing to the imperfect light and her own defective vision, she might have mistaken a brush heap against the fence for a man and laid the baby in it. They went back at once, Tom talking volubly to conceal unreasoning anxiety, and Sue frankly terrified and moaning just above her breath.
At the place where Sue had crossed, the snow-crust was shattered in a large circle; they scarcely looked at it, one swing of the lantern, low to the ground, being sufficient to identify the spot. Midway of the adjoining panel the crust was broken also, but less heavily, and Tom went on his knees and examined the marks with the experienced eye of a hunter. There were faint but plainly perceptible scratches on the snow, as though claws had scraped downward as the crust sagged under weight. Tom examined the fence, holding the lantern close and scanning the rails intently. On several he found hairs, caught under splinters, and collected them until he had quite a number between his forefinger and thumb. They were something over an inch long, brown in color, and very fine and glossy—the hairs of an animal. He laid them together in his palm, and held the light so that his wife could see and realize the significance of the discovery. No sound escaped either; they simply stared at each other, the face of the father stiffening like stone, while that of the mother blanched to the pallor of snow with the draining of blood from her heart.
The horrible truth seemed everywhere, in the earth, in the air, and to shout itself through the spaces of the infinite.
Mistaking it for her husband, the woman had unwittingly given her baby to a bear.
The man was the first to recover himself. His hunting experiences had trained him to be prompt in emergency and ready in resource at all times, but now, under this emotional stress, his brain worked with astonishing quickness. Much time had already been wasted, and every second was precious. The bear might still be at hand, in one of the adjacent hollows. His lair was probably up among the heights, but he might stop somewhere. Tom’s mind shied away from thought of that which might cause delay, and harnessed itself to action. He must follow the trail on the instant, going swiftly, with crest lowered and light to the ground. He was unarmed except for a hunting knife in his belt, but, in his then mood would not have hesitated to attack a grizzly with naked hands.