XIX

IN THE MIST

I slipped off in grayness the next morning. There was a water fog that
hugged me clammily, and sounds echoed in it as in a metal canopy. I
could not have found my way in open water, but here I could crowd tight
to the shore and keep my bearings. I took a keg of pitch with me, for
when I saw the weather I knew that I would give the canoe many a scrape
on rocks and snags.

It was tedious traveling, and it seemed a long time before I made my
worming way around every inequality in the shore and reached the inlet
where we had eaten lunch. Here I lifted the canoe, turned it bottom
side up in the meadow, and covered it with a sailcloth. I wanted it to
dry, and the air was still dripping moisture. I had expected the fog
to lift before this, but it seemed to be growing heavier.

I tried to light my pipe, but the tobacco was damp and would not burn.
Slow drops dribbled from the trees and the meadow was soggy. Where
should I go? I could hear nothing, and as for seeing anything I could
have passed my own camp a rod away. It began to seem a fool's errand.
I thought of returning.

Perhaps it was a boyish feeling that took me to the sycamore. I looked
about. The ashes of our little fire still lay in a rounded pile, and
at the edge of the pile, printed deep in the yielding surface, was a
moccasin print. It was not the woman's moccasin, nor my own boot. One
look showed me that.

And then I went over the surrounding ground. I learned nothing, for
pebbles and short grass are as non-committal as a Paris pavement. The
print had been made before the mist fell, for the dew was unbrushed. I
looked at the encircling forest, and its dripping uniformity gave no
clue. I knocked the charred tobacco from my pipe, pulled my hat down
on my ears, and plunged straight ahead.

It was a fool's way of going at the matter, but a fool has as good a
chance as a philosopher in such a case. I clove my way through the
mist as blind and breathless as a swimmer in a breaker. The forest was
thickly grown and the trees stood about me as alike as water-reeds.
Whenever I touched one it pelted me with drops, and I was numbed with
cold. My feet slipped, for the ground was slimy with wet. But I was
not thinking of comfort, nor of speed. I was listening.

For the strange, gray air was trembling with echoes. Every snapped
twig, every bird murmur, every brush of a padded foot on leaf mould was
multiplied many-fold. The fog