The sky was thick and heavy, with only a white blur where the moon was smothered.

Fifty yards away the gray gloom became opaque.

Over the thousand miles of drift to the north there came a faint whistling wind, rising at times in fitful sweeps of flinty snow, and at intervals dying away until it became only a lulling sound.

In one of these intervals both men held their breath.
From somewhere out of the night, and yet from nowhere that they could point, there came a human voice.
"Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau--Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau--Ho, Pierre Thoreau-u-u-u!" "Off there!" shivered the doctor.
"No--out there!" said Philip.
He raised his own voice in an answering shout, and in response there came again the cry for Pierre Thoreau.
"I'm right!" cried the doctor.

"Come!" He darted away, his greatcoat making a dark blur in the night ahead of Philip, who paused again to shout through the megaphone of his hands.
There came no reply.