And Simpson, scarcely knowing what he did, presently found himself running wildly to and fro, searching, calling, tripping over roots and boulders, and flinging himself in a frenzy of undirected pursuit after the Caller.  Behind the screen of memory and emotion with which experience veils events, he plunged, distracted and half-deranged, picking up false lights like a ship at sea, terror in his eyes and heart and soul.  For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him in that far voice—­the Power of untamed Distance—­the Enticement of the Desolation that destroys.  He knew in that moment all the pains of someone hopelessly and irretrievably lost, suffering the lust and travail of a soul in the final Loneliness.  A vision of Defago, eternally hunted, driven and pursued across the skiey vastness of those ancient forests fled like a flame across the dark ruin of his thoughts ...

It seemed ages before he could find anything in the chaos of his disorganized sensations to which he could anchor himself steady for a moment, and think ...

The cry was not repeated; his own hoarse calling brought no response; the inscrutable forces of the Wild had summoned their victim beyond recall—­and held him fast.

* * * * *

Yet he searched and called, it seems, for hours afterwards, for it was late in the afternoon when at length he decided to abandon a useless pursuit and return to his camp on the shores of Fifty Island Water.  Even then he went with reluctance, that crying voice still echoing in his ears.  With difficulty he found his rifle and the homeward trail.  The concentration necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a biting hunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind steady.  Otherwise, he admits, the temporary aberration he had suffered might have been prolonged to the point of positive disaster.  Gradually the ballast shifted back again, and he regained something that approached his normal equilibrium.

But for all that the journey through the gathering dusk was miserably haunted.  He heard innumerable following footsteps; voices that laughed and whispered; and saw figures crouching behind trees and boulders, making signs to one another for a concerted attack the moment he had passed.  The creeping murmur of the wind made him start and listen.  He went stealthily, trying to hide where possible, and making as little sound as he could.  The shadows of the woods, hitherto protective or covering merely, had now become menacing, challenging; and the pageantry in his frightened mind masked a host of possibilities that were all the more ominous for being obscure.  The presentiment of a nameless doom lurked ill-concealed behind every detail of what had happened.