“These circles were quite large, fully seventy feet in diameter, and were crudely put together of some strange kind of frosted stone: or a white, glazed rock with which I am totally unfamiliar. When I put out a hand to touch one of these rocks, I was severely shocked by what was apparently an electrical discharge of some kind; add to this the fact that the stone is certainly of great age and incredibly cold, and you may conceive of the amazement with which I viewed this strange place of worship.
“There were three circles, not very far removed from each other. Having examined them from the outside, I entered the first circle and found, as I have pointed out before, that the snow was exceedingly soft. Here there were very distinct footprints. I think I must have looked at them in mild interest for some minutes before their significance began to dawn upon me. Then I dropped to my knees and examined them carefully.
“The evidence before my eyes was plain. The footprints were made by a man wearing shoes, certainly a white man, for the Indians hereabouts do not wear shoes, and the prints were the same as those made on the open space by Henry Lucas when he vanished. On the face of it, I felt I could work on the hypothesis that these prints had been made by Lucas.
“But the most extraordinary thing about the footprints was that they gave evidence that the man who had made them had neither walked into the circle nor walked out of it. The point of entry — or, rather, the beginning of the line of prints — lay not far from where I stood; here was partly snow-covered evidence that he had been thrown or dropped into the circle. He had then risen and begun to walk around toward the circle’s only entrance, but at this entrance his footprints hesitated, then turned back. He walked faster and faster, then he began to run, and abruptly his footprints stopped entirely, cut off toward the middle of the circle. There was no mistake about it, for, while the preceding footprints were slightly snow-covered, the light snow-fall had apparently stopped coincident with the cessation of the footprints.
“As I was examining these curious prints, I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. I scanned the forest covertly, but nothing came into my line of vision. Nevertheless, the feeling of being under observation persisted, and a mounting uneasiness took possession of me, so that I felt a definite sense of danger within this strange and silent circle of stone deep in the hushed woods. Presently I emerged from the circular altar and went toward the forest in some apprehension.
“Then suddenly I came upon the site of great fires, and I remembered the half-hinted suggestions put forth by some of the natives of Cold Harbor. The fact that Lucas’s footprints were within the stone circle certainly linked the fires to his disappearance, and, as I have pointed out, snow was obviously falling at the time Lucas stood within the stones. I remembered then, too, that there had occasionally been rumors of fires seen in the deep woods along the Olassie trail when that trail was still in use a few years ago. I examined the ashes, though, owing to encroaching darkness, I could not be as careful as I wished. Apparently only pine boughs had been burned.
“I now saw that not only was darkness closing down, but that the sky had clouded, and flakes of snow were already beginning to sift down through the trees. Here, then, was another point in evidence — the sudden oncoming of a snowstorm, when but a few moments before, the sky had been devoid of clouds. One by one those queer hints were taking tangible form before my eyes.
“All this time, I was still certain that someone was observing my every movement; so I calculated my movements in such a way that I might surprise anyone in the woods. The fires had been burned behind the altars, and as I turned, I faced the stone circles. Now, as I say, it was getting dark, and snow was falling — but I saw something. It was like a sudden cloud of snow hanging over the altars, like a huge shapeless mass of thickly packed snow — not just a swirl of flakes, though snowflakes did seem to encircle it. And it did not have a white color, but rather a blue-green tint shading away into purple. This may have been the effect of the dusk which was rapidly invading the forest. I want to make clear to you the fact that I was not then conscious of anything strange, being fully aware of the weird light changes sometimes affecting one’s vision at dusk.
“But, as I went forward, past the altars, I looked around. And then I saw that the upper half of that weird entity moved independently of the lower! As I stood looking up into the darkness, the thing began to fade away, just as if dissolving into the falling snow, until at last there was nothing there. Then I became frightened, with the fear that the thing encompassed me, was all around me in the falling snow. For the first time in my life I was afraid of the woods and the night and the silent snow. I turned and ran, but not before I saw! — Where the snow image had been, a pair of bright, green eyes were suspended like stars in space above the circular altars!
“I am not ashamed to confess that I ran as if a pack of wolves bayed at my heels. I still thank whatever powers there are for guiding my mad flight to the comparative safety of the Olassie trail, where it was still quite light, and where for the first time I paused. I looked back toward the woods, but there was nothing to be seen for the snow, now falling thickly.
“I was still afraid, and I half imagined that I heard whispering among the snow-flakes, a hellish whispering urging me to return to the altars. So strong it was, so clear, that for one awful moment I stood wavering on the trail, almost ready to turn and plunge again into the ominous darkness of the forest. Then I broke the spell that held me and ran on down the trail toward Cold Harbor.
“I went directly to the house of Dr. Telfer, where Father Brisbois was staying. The priest was frankly alarmed at what he described as my‘wild and horror-struck appearance,’ and Dr. Telfer wanted to give me a sedative, which I declined.
“I told them at once what I had seen. From the expression on his face, I gathered that what I was saying was neither exactly unexpected nor new to the priest. The doctor, however, made it rather plain from his comments that he considered me the victim of illusory phenomena common enough at twilight. But Father Brisbois disagreed. In fact, the priest hinted that I had but penetrated a veil always present but seldom seen, that what I had seen was no illusion but indeed a tangible proof of a ghastly other world of which most human beings, mercifully, know and suspect nothing.
“He asked me whether I had noticed that the Indians came from very old stock, probably Asiatic in origin. I admitted that I had noticed this. Then he said something about worship of gods old before man was born into the world.
“I asked him what he meant by old gods.
“These are his words: ‘There are deep, underground channels of knowledge that have seeped down to us from beings far removed from humanity. There is, for instance, the ghastly and suggestive account of Hastur the Unspeakable and his loathly spawn.’
“I protested that he had reference only to legend.
“He replied, ‘Yes, but don’t forget that there exists no legend which is not firmly rooted to something, even if that something existed in a long, long forgotten past beyond memory of man — malign Hastur, who called to his aid the spirits of the elements and subdued them to his will, those elementary forces which are still worshipped in far out-of-the-way places in this world — the Wind-Walker, and Ithaqua, god of the great white silence, the one god of whom no totems bear sign. After all, have we not our own Biblical legend of the struggle between elemental Good and Evil as personified by our deity and the forces of Satan in the pre-dawn era of our earth?’