The Mutter of the Drums.

"Pom-pom-porn-porn!"

What is there in man that responds so extraordinarily to the measures of that most barbaric of sound instruments, the drum? Why should the reverberations from a hollow cylinder beaten on its skin-covered top with a stick so powerfully influence the feelings of sophisticated human beings with supposedly disciplined emotions? Is it a legacy from the dim past, this mysterious response, an inheritance from forebears who lived in dens, danced under the moon and doubtless fashioned drums in their first rude assays at achieving melody? Or is it maybe the rhythm, the persistently-recurring thump, the steady staccato monotone impinging with inescapable and hammerlike precision on the chords of that most sensitive human keyboard, the nerves?

We hear in the distance the smart strains of a marching band, the even boom of the drum dominating, setting the pace, and are instantly thrilled. Our pulses quicken, our shoulders lift and almost automatically we stiffen our stride to step in time with the stirring lilt of the music. Or we view the slow passage of a military funeral and listen with bowed heads to the solemn measures of "The Dead March in Saul," while the leaden thud of the drum falls, like a clod on a coffin, with a grim echo of finality at the end of each stanza, and are profoundly moved.

But of all the sounds I have heard that had their source in the drum, none have so moved me as those winging like bats through the heavy air as I walked home from Quinn's office that memorable first of April night.

It was mild and moist, with thick dark clouds overhead and sullen unrelieved murk beneath. An oil lamp burned dimly, I noticed, in Delaney's house; save for this, nowhere was sign or sound of human life discernible in the lonely settlement. Impenetrable blackness, a mantle of obscurity and silence, the deep brooding silence of the wilderness-these enveloped and overspread all.

Then from the Plains Cree camp far down at the foot of the lake, the muffled note of an Indian drum stabbed like a bullet.

I was strangely affected. There was something sinister, foreboding, in that reverberant boom. I remembered my call a few evenings before at the big dancing lodge on the creek and the suppressed excitement of which I had been the conscious though uncomprehending witness. I had heard the war chief speaking with subdued passion in his soft, vibrant tones, had seen the smothered fire in his sultry, impelling eyes, and I recalled the presage of approaching disaster borne in upon me then. And now as I listened to the throb of the drum I saw it all again: Wandering Spirit speaking and the naked, bronzed warriors with bated breath, their black eyes ashine, hanging in the intervals of the war dance on his burning words. The little settlement might sleep; in Big Bear's camp, few slumbered on this pregnant April night.

I recovered myself with a start. What was I dreaming about? I was a fool, as Quinn had said. Weren't the Indians friendly? Hadn't they shown it that day? We, too, had been friendly; there was no reason on earth why their attitude toward us should change. Why should I distrust their professions of good will-feel alarm, this presentiment of evil? I would do so no longer. I was done with forebodings.

But, suddenly-once more-the drum! There had come a lull in the measured beat. Now it had begun again. And immediately I was assailed afresh, and even more rigorously by my mad misgivings. It was one thing, I found, to dismiss one's worries and another to be quit of them. I knew then that so long as I was aware of the throb of the drum my gloomy premonitions would persist.

If only we had guessed the depths of impending woe that ominous drumbeat portended! If . . It might not have been too late; we might still perhaps have stolen out-escaped to the comparative security of Fort Pitt. But we did not know.

I felt my way in the dark up to my room at the post of the old trading company and tumbled into bed. Big Bear and his tale of the spring of blood came to me. At last, I slept, with the steady stroke of the distant drum in my ears and upon my spirit like a pall the prescience of dreadful things close at hand which I was powerless either to mitigate or avert.