The different trees intermingled their branches in inextricable confusion, and quite hid the view.

Michel Ardan and Maston walked on side by side phasing silently through the tall grass, making a road for themselves through the vigorous creepers, looking in all the bushes or branches lost in the sombre shade of the foliage, and expecting to hear a shot at every step.

As to the traces that Barbicane must have left of his passage through the wood, it was impossible for them to see them, and they marched blindly on in the hardly-formed paths in which an Indian would have followed his adversary step by step.
After a vain search of about an hour's length the two companions stopped.

Their anxiety was redoubled.
"It must be all over," said Maston in despair.

"A man like Barbicane would not lay traps or condescend to any manoeuvre! He is too frank, too courageous.