Ned, the wiry older man who ventured outside with him, gestured with his pipe at the snowy mounds before him. “There’s something over here. Can’t quite see what, though.” Slocum brought the lantern in low just as an errant gust filled in a track that at its bottom looked as though it had been made by a massive human foot, padded like a bear’s, and tipped with great curving claws where the toes ended. “You see that?” he said, shouting close by Ned’s ear. The other man merely nodded, then gestured onward ahead with his pipe stem. “More there. Best look at ’em before the wind fills them in, too.” In this fashion they made their way around the far end of the long, low, log structure. Occasionally from inside they could hear muffled words from the men, the occasional bark of laughter shushed by other more strident voices. There was something to this howling noise business, and Slocum was eager to find out just what it was that got all these burly loggers in such a worked-up state.
