"Retracing my steps, I walked up-stream, searching for a tree-trunk which would be of sufficient weight to carry me. I planned to launch out a quarter of a mile above the point which I wished to make on the other side, and to trust to the current, and what little steering I could manage, to get me across. I lost much time in my search, for the larger logs which had been driven ashore had got wedged, and required more than one man's strength to refloat them.
"When I found a trunk of sufficient size, the wind had dropped and a mist was settling down, which made it difficult for me to see anything that was not immediately before my eyes. A haunting sensation of insecurity began to pervade my mind. I hardly know how to describe it; it was not dread of a physical death, but fear lest my soul might get lost. Though I was now about to imperil my life, for the preservation of which, during the last half year, I had made every effort of which a human being is capable, that seemed to me as nothing when compared with this new danger. If a man dies, he may live again; but if his soul is snatched from him, what is there left that can survive? This was the menace of which I was aware--a menace of spiritual death, to the cause of which I was drawing nearer through the mist. My whole desire now was to procure the provisions for which I had made the journey, and to escape.
"I got astride the trunk, steadying myself with a long birch-pole which I had cut, and pushed off. The water was icy cold, causing my legs to ache painfully, as if they were being torn from my body by heavy weights. Soon the log was caught in the central current and began to race. Like maddened horses, foaming at my side, before, and behind, the drift-ice rushed. In the misty greyness of the night, these floating ruins of the winter's silence assumed curious and terrifying shapes. Sometimes they appeared to be polar bears, having human hands and faces; sometimes they seemed to be huskies, with the eyes and ears of men; but more often they were creatures utterly corrupt, who, swimming beside me, acclaimed me as their equal and as one of themselves.
"I remembered the reason which you had stated why the Forbidden River is never travelled--and I knew the power of fear as never before. I could not see where I was going; no land was in sight. I could perceive nothing but mocking befouled faces, and they were on every side. With my steering pole I pushed continually towards the right, dreading every moment that I would lose my balance, or would be swept out into the Last Chance far below the cache. These thoughts made me desperate, and I renewed the struggle with something that was more than physical strength; I knew that, should I die at that time, I would become one of those damned grey faces.