And then, indeed, I pressed all my faculties into service. I put my ear to the wet ground and strained it against tree trunks, trying to weed out the myriad tiny whisperings that assailed me and grasp that one sound that I wanted and hold it clear. And at last I heard it unmistakably; there were voices, more than one it seemed. My ears buzzed with my effort to listen. I heard the sound, lost it, then heard it again. It was like a child's game. I heard it, blundered after it, then it disappeared. I turned to go back, and it came behind and mocked me. It was everywhere and nowhere. It came near, then faded into silence. The fog suffocated me; I found myself pressing at it with my hands. Yet on the whole I made progress. In time the voices grew clearer. There were several of them, perhaps many. I heard shouting,--orders, presumably,--and once a clink of metal,--an iron kettle it might have been. But the sound was back of me, in front of me, at the sides of me, above me. I could not hold it. It reverberated like the drumming of a woodcock that comes to the ear from four quarters at once. And all the time the fog pressed on my eyelids like a hand. I had left my musket hidden under the canoe, for I could not have used it in the dampness, so I had only my knife for guard. I carried it open, and made an occasional notch upon a tree. Once I came to a notched tree a second time. The old woodland madness was on me, and I was stepping in circles. Yet the sounds were growing clearer. They were approaching, though I could not tell from what quarter. I stood still. What followed was like a dream; like the dream that I had had the night after the storm when I woke with sweat cold on me. The fog pinioned me like a clammy winding-sheet; I could see nothing; I was too chilled to feel; I was as alone and powerless as a lost canoe in the ocean; but somewhere on earth or in air I heard a company of men pass me by. The sounds were unmistakable. I heard the swish of wet leaves, the pad of feet, and even the creak of the damp leather of the carrying-straps. Something cracked, pricking in my ears in a blur of sound, and I knew that the men had brushed a branch with the canoe that they were carrying on their heads. They were near me; at any moment they might come within touch of my hand. But where were they? Whoever they were, whatever they were, the wish to see them became an obsession. I knew no feeling but my tingling to get at them. I pushed to right and left. I knocked against trees. The sounds were here, then there. I could not reach them. They taunted me as lost spirits tantalize a soul in purgatory. Whichever way I turned they were just out of my grasp. I clenched my hands and swore that I would not be beaten.