Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 5 (1927-11).djvu/40

 us broke the oddly strained silence. "I left Victor where he fell, I think, and paddled to one of the fishing camps on the lake. Mr. McDonald happened to be there, and he consented to take me back with him. I guess, gentlemen, that is all my story. Do you think I am mad, as Mr. McDonald does, I am sure, or do you think that I know what I saw?"

With a pitiful eagerness he glanced from one face to another.

George was the first to speak.

"I think, Doctor, that you have had a most unusual experience," he said thoughtfully. "And I think Shakespeare was indeed right in saying that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of most of us."

I nodded. "That is undoubtedly so, Doctor," was the only remark I could think of, although I knew in my heart, of course, that the doctor was a madman.

It was not until after the doctor had retired that I learned the rest of the story. It was McDonald who threw the last light on the strange tale the doctor had told.

"The funny thing about it," remarked McDonald, as we were smoking a last pipe around the fire, "is that when I went back to the doctor's camp, Victor had two bullet holes in his body; one through the leg and one through the head, and the one through the leg was tightly bandaged with a blood-soaked handkerchief—and to the wound were sticking a number of black and yellow hairs—wolf hairs!"

George said nothing, and I said nothing. There are lots of things in the woods of the far north that man is foolish to attempt to explain.