th 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.

But my pitiful little oath was all bluster and impotent defiance. I
was as helpless as a squirming puppy held by the neck. I ran like a
madman, but I ran the wrong way. The invisible crew passed me, and
their voices faded. I heard them melt, melt into nothing. A sound, an
impression,--that had been all. Not even a gray shadow on the fog to
show that I had not been dreaming. I looked at my skinned knuckles and
disordered clothes, and a strange feeling shook me. A certain rashness
of temperament had all my life made me contemptuous of fear. But this
was different. I tried to laugh at myself, but could not.

It was a simple matter to retrace my route, for I had left a trail like
a behemoth's. And one thought I chewed all the way back to the meadow.
If I could have done it over again I should have called, and so have
drawn whatever thing it was toward me. That would have been dangerous,
and I might have paid the forfeit of a head that was not my own to part
with, but at least I should have seen what thing it was that passed me
in the fog. There began to be something that was not wholly sound and
sane in the depth of my feeling that I ought, at whatever cost, to have
confronted that noise and forced it to declare itself.

When I came to the meadow it was wet and spectral. The fog had lifted
somewhat and now the air was curiously luminous. It appeared
transparent, as if the vision could pierce far-stretching reaches, but
when I tried to peer ahead I found my glance baffled a few feet away.
It was as if the world ended suddenly, exhaled in grayness,