down, and it made meso sick and scared I couldn't budge for most

　　a half a minuteit seemed to me—and then there warn't no raft in

　　sight；you couldn't see twenty yards.3 I jumped into the canoe

　　and runback to the stern and grabbed the paddle and set her back a

　　stroke.But she didn't come, I was in such a hurry Ihadn't untied

　　her.I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so excited my hands

　　shook so I couldn't hardly do anything with them.

　　As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy,

　　right down the tow-head.4 That was all right as far asit went,

　　but the tow-head warn't sixty yards long, and theminute I flew by

　　the foot of it I shot out into the solid whitefog, and hadn't no

　　more idea which way I was going than adead man.

　　Thinks I, it won't do to paddle；first I know I'll run intothe

　　bank or a tow-head or something；I got to set still andfloat, and

　　yet it's mighty fidgety business to have to hold yourhands still

　　at such a time.I whooped and listened.Away downthere, somewheres,

　　I hears a small whoop, and up comes myspirits.I went tearing after

　　it, listening sharp to hear it again.The next time it come, I see

　　I warn't heading for it but head-ing away to the right of it.And

　　the next time, I was head-ing away to the left of it—and not gaining

　　on it much, either, for I was flying around, this way and that and

　　'tother, 5but it was going straight ahead all the time.

　　I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beatit

　　all the time, but he never did, and it was the still placesbetween

　　the whoops that was making the trouble for me.Well, I fought along,

　　and directly I hears the whoops behind me.Iwas tangled good,

　　now.That was somebody else's whoop.orelse I was turned around.

　　I throwed the paddle down.I heard the whoop again；itwas behind me yet, but in a different place；it kept coming,

　　and kept changing its place, and I kept answering, till by-and-by

　　it was in front of me again and I knowed the current hadswung the

　　canoe's head down stream and I was all right, ifthat was Jim and

　　not some other raftsman hollering.I could-n't tell nothing about

　　voices in a fog, for nothing don't looknatural nor sound natural

　　in a fog.

　　The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a booming

　　down on a cut bank6 with smoky ghosts of big treeson it, and the

　　current throwed me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of

　　snags that fairly roared, the current was tear-ing by them so swift.

　　In another second or two it was solid white and still again.I

　　set perfectly still, then, listening to my heart thump, and Ireckon

　　I didn't draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.