began doing the creeping act
and soon found the deer lying on his trail. I hung the deer up and
went back to camp thinking that I had enough sport for one day and
would let well enough alone.

When the boys came in at night they brought in two marten skins.

CHAPTER XVII.

Lost in the Woods.

One writer contends that the pocket compass is but very little use to
a man in a dense forest. This, I think, depends largely upon
circumstances. While the writer has spent a good portion of fifty
years almost continuously in the woods, he has seldom found it
necessary to use a compass to guide him out. Now this is due partly
to the natural faculty of locating any particular place. This faculty
of locating any certain place or point by giving or knowing the
proper direction to take after one has traveled all day or for
several days in the woods, I am inclined to credit to a sort of
natural instinct.

I have often thought of the story of the Indian who was met by a man
in the woods who asked the Indian if he was lost. The reply was, "No,
me ain't lost, wigwam lost, me here." Now I can say without boasting
that it is seldom that the camp or a given point gets lost with me,
while it is not an uncommon occurrence for the writer to get lost or
rather bothered himself in a strange locality. But after a moment's
thought, I say the camp or the point I wish to reach is in that
direction, and it is not often that I miss my calculation.

As I have had several occasions to search for parties lost in the
woods, I wish to relate a particular instance of one man who was
lost. It was an uncle of mine by the name of Nelson, and the writer
went in search of him. To illustrate that those who are lost lose
their heads as soon as they find that they do not know where they
are.

Now I wish to say that if you lost your course or get bothered in
your bearings, do not lose your head, for if you do you are lost, but
keep cool and keep your head. Sit down and fill your pipe, and while
you smoke draw a map of the country carefully in your mind, and
almost invariably you will locate yourself and in so doing will
locate the camp.

To get back to the lost man in question whose name was Amos Fish, and
at the time, was the proprietor of the Cherry Springs Hotel, in this
county. This hotel was located in the heart of the largest forest in
Pennsylvania, and originally was a great resort for hunters from all
over the state as well as southern and wes