The cry was not repeated; his own hoarse calling brought no response;
the inscrutable forces of the Wild had summoned their victim beyond
recall--and held him fast.

* * * * *

Yet he searched and called, it seems, for hours afterwards, for it was
late in the afternoon when at length he decided to abandon a useless
pursuit and return to his camp on the shores of Fifty Island Water. Even
then he went with reluctance, that crying voice still echoing in his
ears. With difficulty he found his rifle and the homeward trail. The
concentration necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a biting
hunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind steady. Otherwise, he
admits, the temporary aberration he had suffered might have been
prolonged to the point of positive disaster. Gradually the ballast
shifted back again, and he regained something that approached his normal
equilibrium.

But for all that the journey through the gathering dusk was miserably
haunted. He heard innumerable following footsteps; voices that laughed
and whispered; and saw figures crouching behind trees and boulders,
making signs to one another for a concerted attack the moment he had
passed. The creeping murmur of the wind made him start and listen. He
went stealthily, trying to hide where possible, and making as little
sound as he could. The shadows of the woods, hitherto protective or
covering merely, had now become menacing, challenging; and the pageantry
in his frightened mind masked a host of possibilities that were all the
more ominous for being obscure. The presentiment of a nameless doom
lurked ill-concealed behind every detail of what had happened.