It was very cold and the time must have been very late, for the wind had died down, and I heard not a tinkle from the hobbled horses.

The absence of the cowbell music gave me a sense of loneliness, for without it the silence of the great forest was a thing to be felt.
This oppressiveness, however, was broken by a far-distant cry, unlike any sound I had ever heard.

Not sure of myself, I freed my ears from the blanketed hood and listened.

It came again, a wild cry, that made me think first of a lost child, and then of the mourning wolf of the north.

It must have been a long distance off in the forest.