Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 5 (1927-11).djvu/39

Rh "It was limping badly, its left hind leg being apparently badly hurt, and in the firelight I saw several drops of blood gleaming blackly on the rocks at my feet.

no effort to follow the animal. I was exhausted with my terrible struggle, and my brain was throbbing dizzily with excitement. I am no hero, and that great beast, bigger than any wolf and with a light of hellish intelligence burning in its eyes, had chilled the very blood of me. Weakly, with a little trembling sigh of relief, I seated myself beside the fire.

"A moment later I started apprehensively. Something was coming through the bush! Was it? A familiar voice hailed me from the darkness. It was Victor!

"Smiling, his teeth gleaming whitely under his black mustache, Victor came up to the fire.

M'sieu is awake, eh?' he remarked. 'I have been out hunting for a wolf that I hear while M'sieu sleeps. I am so bold as to take the gun, but sacré! Of the wolf I do not even catch sight. Shrewd ones, those wolves, M'sieu!' He was smiling amiably, but as his glance met mine, I would have sworn there was something mocking in the depths of his dark eyes, and for an instant it seemed that they gleamed with smoky green fire.

I saw him,' I remarked shortly. 'He attacked me.'

So!' exclaimed Victor in surprize. 'The wolf, he attack you, here by the fire? Eet ees imposs'!'

Impossible or not, he did just that,' I declared. 'I shot and wounded him or he would have torn my throat out. Only hit him in the leg, but that was enough.'

And tomorrow we will be back in town! Eet ees too bad you have not the time to stay so we could hunt heem!' said Victor, a peculiar note in his voice. 'Even though you do laugh at the werewolves of my fathers, you would like to shoot a timber wolf, ees eet not so?'

"Again the smoky green light seemed to flicker in his eyes. A thousand tumultuous, impossible thoughts swirled through my brain. The smile on Victor's face seemed to turn to a menacing grin, like the snarling visage of a wolf with gleaming white fangs  slavering jaws

"Some instinct caused me to look down. Victor followed the direction of my glance with a smile half of fear, half of hatred.

"His left leg, from the knee down, was covered with blood!

It was in the left leg that I shot the wolf,' I said musingly, almost unaware that I was thinking aloud.

And eet ees the left leg that I hurt when I fell in the dark!' smiled Victor. 'Eet ees what you call a coo-incident, ees eet not, M'sieu? Something eet ees hard to believe?' And he chuckled mockingly, triumphantly.

"My overwrought nerves gave way then. I felt something snap out of place up here"—the doctor indicated his head with a vague gesture—"and a dizzy, light-headed feeling swept over me.

"I remember seeing Victor as through a bloody fog, across the fire, but his face had changed to the face of a wolf—the wolf that had leaped through the flames, straight for my throat.

"I think I shouted something as I drew my revolver and fired at that leering caricature of a human face. I am a good shot, and I did not miss, for Victor crumpled in his tracks."

The doctor paused for a moment and stared moodily into the fire.

"I do not remember just what happened after that," he resumed after a few minutes, during which none of