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The Damned Thing.............................................................................................................................................1

BY the light of a tallow candle, which had been placed on one end of a rough table, a man was reading

something written in a book. It was an old account book, greatly worn; and the writing was not, apparently,

very legible, for the man sometimes held the page close to the flame of the candle to get a stronger light upon

it. The shadow of the book would then throw into obscurity a half of the room, darkening a number of faces

and figures; for besides the reader, eight other men were present. Seven of them sat against the rough log

walls, silent and motionless, and, the room being small, not very far from the table. By extending an arm any

one of them could have touched the eighth man, who lay on the table, face upward, partly covered by a sheet,

The man with the book was not reading aloud, and no one spoke; all seemed to be waiting for something to

occur; the dead man only was without expectation. From the blank darkness outside came in, through the

aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in the wilderness the long,

nameless note of a distant coyote; the stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange cries of night

birds, so different from those of the birds of day; the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious

chorus of small sounds that seem always to have been but half heard when they have suddenly ceased, as if

conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing of all this was noted in that company; its members were not

overmuch addicted to idle interest in matters of no practical importance; that was obvious in every line of

their rugged faces obvious even in the dim light of the single candle. They were evidently men of the

The person reading was a trifle different; one would have said of him that he was of the world, worldly, albeit

there was that in his attire which attested a certain fellowship with the organisms of his environment. His coat

would hardly have passed muster in San Francisco: his footgear was not of urban origin, and the hat that lay

by him on the floor (he was the only one uncovered) was such that if one had considered it as an article of

mere personal adornment he would have missed its meaning. In countenance the man was rather

prepossessing, with just a hint of sternness; though that he may have assumed or cultivated, as appropriate to

one in authority. For he was a coroner. It was by virtue of his once that he had possession of the book in

which he was reading; it had been found among the dead man's effects in his cabin, where the inquest was

When the coroner had finished reading he put the book into his breast pocket. At that moment the door was

pushed open and a young man entered. He, clearly, was not of mountain birth and breeding: he was clad as

those who dwell in cities. His clothing was dusty, however, as from travel. He had, in fact, been riding hard

"We have waited for you," said the coroner. "It is necessary to have done with this business tonight.,"

The young man smiled. "I am sorry to have kept you," he said. "I went away, not to evade your summons, but

to post to my newspaper an account of what I suppose I am called back to relate."

"The account that you posted to your newspaper," he said, "differs probably from that which you will give

"That," replied the other, rather hotly and with a visible flush, "is as you choose. I used manifold paper and

have a copy of what I sent. It was not written as news, for it is incredible, but as fiction. It may go as a part of

The coroner was apparently not greatly affected by the young man's manifest resentment. He was silent for

some moments, his eyes upon the floor. The men about the sides of the cabin talked in whispers, but seldom

withdrew their gaze from the face of the corpse. Presently the coroner lifted his eyes and said: "We will

"I was visiting him at this place to shoot and fish. A part of my purpose, however, was to study him, and his

odd, solitary way of life. He seemed a good model for a character in fiction. I sometimes write stories."

Some of the jurors laughed. Against a sombre background humor shows high lights. Soldiers in the intervals

"Relate the circumstances of this man's death," said the coroner. "You may use any notes or memoranda that

The witness understood. Pulling a manuscript from his breast pocket he held it near the candle, and turning

"...The sun had hardly risen when we left the house. We were looking for quail, each with a shotgun, but we

had only one dog. Morgan said that our best ground was beyond a certain ridge that he pointed out, and we

crossed it by a trail through the chaparral. On the other side was comparatively level ground, thickly covered

with wild oats. As we emerged from the chaparral, Morgan was but a few yards in advance. Suddenly, we

heard, at a little distance to our right, and partly in front, a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the

"Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching the agitated chaparral, said nothing, but had cocked

both barrels of his gun, and was holding it in readiness to aim. I thought him a trifle excited, which surprised

me, for he had a reputation for exceptional coolness, even in moments of sudden and imminent peril.

"'O, come!' I said. 'You are not going to fill up a deer with quailshot, are you?'

"Still he did not reply; but, catching a sight of his face as he turned it slightly toward me, I was struck by the

pallor of it. Then I understood that we had serious business on hand, and my first conjecture was that we had

"The bushes were now quiet, and the sounds had ceased, but Morgan was as attentive to the place as before.

"'That Damned Thing!' he replied, without turning his head. His voice was husky and unnatural. He trembled

"I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the place of the disturbance moving in the

most inexplicable way. I can hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which not only

bent it, but pressed it down crushed it so that it did not rise, and this movement was slowly prolonging

itself directly toward us, "Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me so strangely as this unfamiliar and

unaccountable phenomenon, yet I am unable to recall any sense of fear. I remember and tell it here

because, singularly enough, I recollected it then that once, in looking carelessly out of an open window, I

momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of a group of larger trees at a little distance away. It

looked the same size as the others, but, being more distinctly and sharply defined in mass and detail, seemed

out of harmony with them. It was a mere falsification of the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost

terrified me. We so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any seeming suspension of

them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless

movement of the herbage, and the slow, undeviating approach of the line of disturbance were distinctly

disquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened, and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him

suddenly throw his gun to his shoulders and fire both barrels at the agitated grass! Before the smoke of the

discharge had cleared away I heard a loud savage cry a scream like that of a wild animal and, flinging

his gun upon the ground, Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same instant I was

thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in the smoke some soft, heavy

"Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun, which seemed to have been struck from my hands, I

heard Morgan crying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage sounds

as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of

Morgan's retreat; and may heaven in mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a distance of less than

thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long

hair in disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right

arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At

times, as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body; it was as if

he had been partly blotted out I can not otherwise express it then a shifting of his position would bring it

"All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time Morgan assumed all the postures of a

determined wrestler vanquished by superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him not always

distinctly. During the entire incident his shouts and curses were heard, as if through an enveloping uproar of

such sounds of rage and fury as I had never heard from the throat of man or brute!

"For a moment only I stood irresolute, then, throwing down my gun, I ran forward to my friend's assistance. I

had a vague belief that he was suffering from a fit or some form of convulsion. Before I could reach his side

he was down and quiet. All sounds had ceased, but, with a feeling of such terror as even these awful events

had not inspired, I now saw the same mysterious movement of the wild oats prolonging itself from the

trampled area about the prostrate man toward the edge of a wood. It was only when it had reached the wood

The coroner rose from his seat and stood beside the dead man. Lifting an edge of the sheet he pulled it away,

exposing the entire body, altogether naked and showing in the candle light a claylike yellow. It had,

however, broad maculations of bluish black, obviously caused by extravasated blood from contusions. The

chest and sides looked as if they had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadful lacerations; the skin

The coroner moved round to the end of the table and undid a silk handkerchief, which had been passed under

the chin and knotted on the top of the head. When the handkerchief was drawn away it exposed what had

been the throat. Some of the jurors who had risen to get a better view repented their curiosity, and turned

away their faces. Witness Harker went to the open window and leaned out across the sill, faint and sick.

Dropping the handkerchief upon the dead man's neck, the coroner stepped to an angle of the room, and from

a pile of clothing produced one garment after another, each of which he held up a moment for inspection. All

were torn, and stiff with blood. The jurors did not make a closer inspection. They seemed rather uninterested.

They had, in truth, seen all this before; the only thing that was new to them being Harker's testimony.

"Gentlemen," the coroner said, "we have no more evidence, I think. Your duty has been already explained to

you; if there is nothing you wish to ask you may go outside and consider your verdict."

"I should like to ask one question, Mr. Coroner," he said. "What asylum did this yer last witness escape

"Mr. Harker," said the coroner, gravely and tranquilly, "from what asylum did you last escape?"

Harker flushed crimson again, but said nothing, and the seven jurors rose and solemnly filed out of the cabin.

"If you have done insulting me, sir," said Harker, as soon as he and the officer were left alone with the dead

Harker started to leave, but paused, with his hand on the door latch. The habit of his profession was strong in

"The book that you have there I recognize it as Morgan's diary. You seemed greatly interested in it; you

"The book will cut no figure in this matter," replied the official, slipping it into his coat pocket; "all the

As Harker passed out of the house the jury reentered and stood about the table, on which the now covered

corpse showed under the sheet with sharp definition. The foreman seated himself near the candle, produced

from his breast pocket a pencil and scrap of paper, and wrote rather laboriously the following verdict, which

"We, the jury, do find that the remains come to their death at the hands of a mountain lion, but some of us

In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries having, possibly, a scientific value as

suggestions. At the inquest upon his body the book was not put in evidence; possibly the coroner thought it

not worth while to confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entries mentioned can not be ascertained; the

upper part of the leaf is torn away; the part of the entry remaining is as follows:

"...would run in a half circle, keeping his head turned always toward the centre and again he would stand still,

barking furiously. At last he ran away into the brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first that he had gone

mad, but on returning to the house found no other alteration in his manner than what was obviously due to

"Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors impress some olfactory centre with images of the thing emitting

"Sept. 2. Looking at the stars last night as they rose above the crest of the ridge east of the house, I

observed them successively disappear from left to right. Each was eclipsed but an instant, and only a few

at the same time, but along the entire length of the ridge all that were within a degree or two of the crest were

blotted out. It was as if something had passed along between me and them; but I could not see it, and the stars

"Sept. 27. It has been about here again I find evidences of its presence every day. I watched again all of

last night in the same cover, gun in hand, doublecharged with buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints

were there, as before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not sleep indeed, I hardly sleep at all. It is terrible,

insupportable! If these amazing experiences are real I shall go mad; if they are fanciful I am mad already.

"Oct. 3. I shall not go it shall not drive me away. No, this is my house, my land. God hates a coward....

"Oct. 5. I can stand it no longer; I have invited Harker to pass a few weeks with me he has a level head.

"Oct. 7. I have the solution of the problem; it came to me last night suddenly, as by revelation. How

"There are sounds that we can not hear. At either end of the scale are notes that stir no chord of that imperfect

instrument, the human ear. They are too high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying

an entire treetop the tops of several trees and all in full song. Suddenly in a moment at absolutely

the same instant all spring into the air and fly away. How? They could not all see one another whole

treetops intervened. At no point could a leader have been visible to all. There must have been a signal of

warning or command, high and shrill above the din, but by me unheard. I have observed, too, the same

simultaneous flight when all were silent, among not only blackbirds, but other birds quail, for example,

"It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the surface of the ocean, miles apart,

with the convexity of the earth between them, will sometimes dive at the same instant all gone out of sight

in a moment. The signal has been sounded too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and his

comrades on the deck who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral are stirred

"As with sounds, so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum the chemist can detect the presence of

what are known as 'actinic' rays. They represent colors integral colors in the composition of light which

we are unable to discern. The human eye is an imperfect instrument; its range is but a few octaves of the real