emerge therefrom.

"Ugh! I mind the ducking now more than I did a while ago," he murmured.
"The water wasn't cold. Why, we bathed at the other end of the pond late
last evening! But these wet clothes are precious uncomfortable. I wish
we were nearer to camp. Good Gracious! What's that?"

He stood stock-still and erect, his flesh shrinking a little, while his
drenched flannel shirt clung yet more closely and clammily to his skin.

A distant noise was wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It
began like the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into a
quavering, appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away. Almost
as the last note ceased another commenced at the same low pitch, with
only the rest of a heart-beat between the two, and surged forth into a
plaintive yet tempestuous call, which sank as before. It was followed by
a third, terminating in an impatient roar. The weird solo ran through
several scales in its performance, rising, wailing, booming, sinking,
ever varying in expression. It marked a new era in Neal's experience of
sounds, and left him choking with bewilderment about what sort of
forest creature it could be which uttered such a call.

He began to get out some bungling description when Cyrus joined him
shortly afterwards, but the American had had a lively time of it while
recovering his jack-light and righting the canoe on mid-pond. He was in
no mood for explanations.

"Keep the yarn, whatever it is, till to-morrow, Neal," he said. "I
didn't hear anything special. Perhaps I was too far away. I'm so wet and
jaded that I feel as limp as a washed-out rag. Let's get back to camp as