Now it happened one moonlight night that Peter had ventured way over almost to the Big River.  He had heard Hooty the Owl’s fierce hunting call far off in the Green Forest.  He had heard Reddy Fox barking up in the Old Pasture.  So Peter felt quite safe.  He felt so safe that he had almost forgotten that there could be such a thing as fear.  And then, from the direction of the Big River, there came such a sound as Peter never had heard before.  It was a sound that made his heart seem to quite stop beating for an instant.  It was a sound that sent cold chills racing and chasing all over him.  It was a sound that made him wish with all his might that he was that instant right in the heart of the dear Old Briar-patch instead of way over there near the bank of the Big River.

He didn’t waste much time getting back to the dear Old Briar-patch, once he was sure his heart hadn’t really stopped beating.  The way he went across the Green Meadows, lipperty-lipperty-lip, lipperty-lipperty-lip, was positive proof that in spite of his fright his heart was quite all right.  He didn’t run a little way, stop, run a little farther and stop again, as is his usual way.  He kept lipperty-lipperty-lipping without a single stop until he reached the edge of the dear Old Briar-patch and once more felt really safe.  Two or three times he had felt that he must stop to get his breath, but each time that sound, that dreadful sound, had seemed to be following right at his heels, and he had suddenly discovered that he didn’t need to stop after all.

But having reached the dear Old Briar-patch Peter stopped and panted for breath while he anxiously watched for the appearance of some unknown enemy following him.  It was then that he realized that that sound came from the Big River, and that whoever made it had not left the Big River at all.  It made Peter feel a wee bit foolish as he thought how he had been sure that there was danger right at his very heels all the way home, when all the time there hadn’t been any danger at all.

Peter sat there and listened, and despite the fact that he now felt absolutely safe, the cold chills ran over him every time he heard it.  It was a voice; Peter was sure of that.  It was a voice, but such a voice as Peter never in his life had heard before.  It was quite as bad if not worse than the voice of Old Man Coyote.  In a way it reminded him of Old Man Coyote’s voice, but while Old Man Coyote’s voice sounded like many voices in one, it was not so fearsome as this voice, for this voice sounded like a human voice, yet wasn’t.  Something inside Peter told him that it wasn’t a human voice, in spite of its sounding so.

The next morning Peter ran over to the Smiling Pool to ask Grandfather Frog if he had any idea who could have such a voice as that.  When he tried to tell Grandfather Frog what that voice was like, he couldn’t.  He just couldn’t describe it.

“It was the lonesomest and craziest sound I’ve ever heard,” declared Peter, “and that is all I can tell you.  It was crazier than the voice of Old Man Coyote.”