oing there in the dry weather and
never know the difference until the mire has them in its clutches. It's
a bad place, the great Grimpen Mire."

"And you say you can penetrate it?"

"Yes, there are one or two paths which a very active man can take. I
have found them out."

"But why should you wish to go into so horrible a place?"

"Well, you see the hills beyond? They are really islands cut off on all
sides by the impassable mire, which has crawled round them in the course
of years. That is where the rare plants and the butterflies are, if you
have the wit to reach them."

"I shall try my luck some day."

He looked at me with a surprised face. "For God's sake put such an idea
out of your mind," said he. "Your blood would be upon my head. I assure
you that there would not be the least chance of your coming back alive.
It is only by remembering certain complex landmarks that I am able to do
it."

"Halloa!" I cried. "What is that?"

A long, low moan, indescribably sad, swept over the moor. It filled the
whole air, and yet it was impossible to say whence it came. From a
dull murmur it swelled into a deep roar, and then sank back into a
melancholy, throbbing murmur once again. Stapleton looked at me with a
curious expression in his face.

"Queer place, the moor!" said he.

"But what is it?"

"The peasants say it is the Hound of the Baskervilles calling for its
prey. I've heard it once or twice before, but never quite so loud."

I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge swelling
plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes. Nothing stirred over
the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked loudly from a tor
behind us.

"You are an educated man. You don't believe such nonsense as that?" said
I. "What do you think is the cause of so strange a sound?"

"Bogs make queer noises sometimes. It's the mud settling, or the water
rising, or something."

"No, no, that was a living voice."

"Well, perhaps it was. Did you ever hear a bittern booming?"

"No, I never did."

"It's a very rare bird--practically extinct--in England now, but all
things are possible upon the moor. Yes, I should not be surprised to
learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last of the bitterns."

"It's the weirdest, strangest thing that ever I heard in my life."

"Yes, it's rather an uncanny place altogether. Look at the hillside
yonder. What do you make of those?"

The whole steep slope was covered