Page:The Best Continental Short Stories of 1923–1924.djvu/59

 Beyond, the white surface was unbroken.

The two men went up the slope and explored the summit of the ridge; on the other side the incline was equally smooth, of an equally unbroken white, spreading out far to another hillock, still larger and whiter. For miles around there was no sign of the second foot.

They came back and found the line of their own steps, neat and regular as if designed. Between the two tracks, in the center of a trodden circle lay, in cynical solitude still, that imprint of a powerful foot. They both felt an impulse to tread it under foot, to obliterate it, to get rid of it, but something seemed to keep them back.

Exhausted, confused, Boura sat down on a milestone.

“Somebody has been pulling our leg,” he concluded.

“It’s positively disgusting,” said the other man. “The joke is too silly and yet  but, great heavens, there are physical limits. This is sheer impossibility Tell me,” he jerked out suddenly, “since there is but one foot, might it not be that of a one-legged man? Don’t laugh at me; I know it is silly, but one must find some explanation. One’s reason is called in question. It is an onslaught by I don’t know what  I am completely at sea. Either we are both mad, or I am having a waking dream, under the influence of fever or else one must find some natural solution.”

Boura gave his opinion pensively: “We are both mad. We are both looking for a natural explanation; we are clinging desperately to the most complicated, the most violently unreasonable suppositions provided they be only natural. It might be much simpler and indeed more natural, if we were to say we are in presence of something supernatural. Then we would merely express our astonishment and go our several ways contentedly. We might even conceivably be satisfied.”

“I certainly should not. If this imprint had served some great purpose, if it could have been of use to anybody, I would cheerfully lead the way and kneel down and cry: It is a miracle! But this thing it is awful, it is idiotic, it is trivial. Why make a single imprint when it is so much easier to make the habitual track?”