He leaned forward, elbows planted on his knees, eyes staring into the fog. In reality, his thoughts, as can be seen, were far, far away. But presently, a sound, muffled and faint, pierced his consciousness and he sprang into instant alertness. He listened, holding his breath, straining to hear.
It came again.
Bob started on a stumbling run for Jack, the first man to the south.
CHAPTER XXI.—A WAILING CRY.
“Jack, Jack,” he shouted, as he ran through the fog, blindly, but remembering to veer away from the river bank a little to avoid the danger of tumbling in. “Jack, Jack, where are you?”
A shadow, fog-distorted, loomed before him, big, enormous. A hand gripped his shoulder and brought him to a halt.
“Here I am, Bob. What’s the matter?”
Bob rubbed the back of a big hand across his eyes.
“I heard something out there,” he said, pointing into the fog upon the river. “I guess I’d been asleep, or daydreaming, anyway. I couldn’t be sure I had heard anything. It came twice—that sound. Then there was silence. So I came down here to ask whether you had heard, too.”
“But, Bob, what was it? What did you hear? I heard nothing.”