The Wendigo
occurrence, Défago, bereft of mind, memory and soul, had gone with it.
He lingered only a few weeks.
And what Punk was able to contribute to the story throws no further
light upon it. He was cleaning fish by the lake shore about five o'clock
in the evening--an hour, that is, before the search party returned--when
he saw this shadow of the guide picking its way weakly into camp. In
advance of him, he declares, came the faint whiff of a certain singular
odour.
That same instant old Punk started for home. He covered the entire
journey of three days as only Indian blood could have covered it. The
terror of a whole race drove him. He knew what it all meant. Défago
had "seen the Wendigo."