art suddenly remembered : it had been just before he saw the big cat - saw the average-sized dog , he mentally corrected himself - the previous morning , in the midst of the woods , the mist circling , for a moment he had thought that he had heard a cry , the sound of a human in distress , but , with his mind full of his own miseries , and with the almost immediate sighting of what , at the time , he had thought was the goal of his searching , he had put the incident completely out of his head .