d, dusky at a
little distance ahead. Even to a seasoned woodsman, twilight in a
timbered country that he does not know brings confusion; uncertainty
leads him far wide of his mark. Hazel, all unused to woods travel,
hurried the more, uneasy with the growing conviction that she had gone
astray.

The shadows deepened until she tripped over roots and stones, and
snagged her hair and clothing on branches she could not see in time to
fend off. As a last resort, she turned straight for the light patch
still showing in the northwest, hoping thus to cross the wagon road
that ran from Soda Creek to the Meadows--it lay west, and she had gone
northeast from town. And as she hurried, a fear began to tug at her
that she had passed the Meadows unknowingly. If she could only cross a
trail--trails always led somewhere, and she was going it blind. The
immensity of the unpeopled areas she had been looking out over for a
week appalled her.

Presently it was dark, and darkness in the woods is the darkness of the
pit itself. She found a fallen tree, and climbed on it to rest and
think. Night in gloomy places brings an eerie feeling sometimes to the
bravest--dormant sense impressions, running back to the cave age and
beyond, become active, harry the mind with subtle, unreasoning
qualms--and she was a girl, brave enough, but out of the only
environment she knew how to grapple with. All the fearsome tales of
forest beasts she had ever heard rose up to harass her. She had not
lifted up her voice while it was light because she was not the timid
soul that cries in the face of a threatened danger. Also because she
would not then admit the possibility of getting lost. And now she was
afraid to call. She huddled on the log, shuddering with the growing
chill of the night air, partly with dread of the long, black night
itself that walled her in. She had no matches to light a fire.

After what seemed an age, she fancied she saw a gleam far distant in
the timber. She watched the spot fixedly, and thought she saw the
faint reflection of a light. That heartened her. She advanced toward
it, hoping that it might be the gleam of a ranch window. Her progress
was slow. She blundered over the litter of a forest floor, tripping
over unseen obstacles. But ten minutes established beyond peradventure
the fact that it was indeed a light. Whether a house light or the
reflection of a camp fire she was not woodwise enough to tell. But a
fire m