Are you quite sure

Mr. Rayner looked interested. Are you quite sure it was a woman?” he asked. It may have been the death-cry of this man—er—Koona Dick, which you heard.”

That is just possible,” agreed the corporal. Yet it seemed to me like the cry of a woman in terror.”

It is easy even for trained ears to be mistaken up here,” said the other suavely. Since I came here I have heard a hare scream like a child in agony.[20] The cry you heard may have been no more than that of some small creature falling a victim to the law of the wild, which is that the strongest takes the prey.”

Maybe!” said Bracknell laconically. In his heart he did not accept the explanation, plausible though it was.

I am sure of it,” answered the other, as if determined to convince him. In the silence of these northern forests, as I have noticed often of late, sounds seem to take strange qualities. The loneliness accentuates them, and if one has any reason for suspecting the presence of other humans besides one’s self, then every sound one hears seems to have some bearing on the unseen presences.”

Perhaps,” replied the policeman, wondering why the other should be so persistent in the matter; but you forget one thing which is rather fatal to your argument.”

And what is that?” inquired Rayner quickly.

Well, I was not expecting to find a woman up in this wilderness; indeed, it was the last thought in my mind. That fact makes your argument fail, at any rate as applied to the cry I heard.”

To this Mr. Rayner made no reply. He pushed a wine decanter towards the other, and rising from the table crossed the room to a cabinet, from which he took out a box of cigars.