What troubled him, and filled his eyes with sudden red glares, were the oily gurgles of the pitfalls which tried to suck him down; the laughing madness of muck that held him as if living things were in it, and which spluttered and coughed when he freed himself.
Half blinded at times, so that even the black shadows were blotted out, he went on.

And at last, coming again to the edge of the stream, he heard a new kind of sound--the slow, steady dipping of Breault's pole.
He hurried on, finding harder ground under his feet, and came noiselessly abreast of the man on his raft of cedar timbers.

He could almost hear his breathing.

And very faintly he could see in the vast gloom a shadow--a shadow that moved slowly against the background of a still deeper shadow beyond.
But there was no scent of Nada or Jolly Roger, and whatever desire had risen in him to make himself known was smothered by caution and suspicion.

After this he did not go ahead of Breault, but kept behind him or abreast of him, within sound of the dipping pole.