midnight
The trail rose , dipped down ; and through that hollow crawled the stream , winding from a hidden spring to the encompassing river below . Garth was winded when he came to it ; to his eyes it seemed a small river . His legs were so numb they hardly felt the cold bite of the water that lapped around them . Some furry water animal leaped away as Garth trudged upstream , alarmed by the strange midnight visitant and the self-encouraging mutterings of a shrill human voice ... * * * * * He had waded what seemed to him a weary distance -- in reality only a few hundred yards -- through the winding , icy creek , when suddenly he halted and stood stock-still . Listening , he heard the ordinary sounds of the wind through the fir-spires , and the slow trickle of water ; heard the beating of his own heart . Nothing else . And yet ... .