While hundreds of smells were agreeable to Wahb, thousands were
indifferent to him, a good many were unpleasant, and some actually put
him in a rage.

He had often noticed that if a west wind were blowing when he was at the
head of the Piney Canon there was an odd, new scent. Some days he did
not mind, it, and some days it disgusted him; but he never followed it
up. On other days a north wind from the high Divide brought a most awful
smell, something unlike any other, a smell that he wanted only to get
away from.


Wahb was getting well past his youth now, and he began to have pains in
the hind leg that had been wounded so often. After a cold night or a
long time of wet weather he could scarcely use that leg, and one day,
while thus crippled, the west wind came down the canon with an odd
message to his nose. Wahb could not clearly read the message, but it
seemed to say, 'Come,' and something within him said, 'Go.' The smell
of food will draw a hungry creature and disgust a gorged one. We do not
know why, and all that any one can learn is that the desire springs from
a need of the body. So Wahb felt drawn by what had long disgusted him,
and he slouched up the mountain path, grumbling to himself and slapping
savagely back at branches that chanced to switch his face.

The odd odor grew very strong; it led him where he had never been
before--up a bank of whitish sand to a bench of the same color, where
there was unhealthy-looking water running down, and a kind of fog coming
out of a hole. Wahb threw up his nose suspiciously--such a peculiar
smell! He climbed the bench.