I took little stock in that trail, or the three days'
notion as to time. I made calculations on losing the trail the first
day and being out a full week. The outfit consisted of rifle, hatchet,
compass, blanket-bag, knapsack and knife. For rations, one loaf of
bread, two quarts of meal, two pounds of pork, one pound of sugar, with
tea, salt, etc. and a supply of jerked venison. One tin dish, twelve
rounds of ammunition and the bullet-molds, filled the list, and did not
make a heavy load.

Early on a crisp, bright October morning I kissed the little fellows
goodbye and started out with Hance, who was to put me on the trail. I
left the children with sorrow and pity at heart. I am glad now that my
visit was a golden hiatus in the sick monotony of their young lives and
that I was able to brighten a few days of their dreary existence. They
had begged for the privilege of sleeping with me on a shake-down from
the first; and when, as often happened, a pair of little feverish lips
would murmur timidly and pleadingly, "I'm so dry; can I have a drink?"
I am thankful that I did not put the pleader off with a sip of tepid
water, but always brought it from the spring, sparkling and cold. For,
a twelve-month later, there were two little graves in a corner of the
stump-blackened garden, and two sore hearts in Pete Williams' cabin.

Hance found the trail easily, but the Indians had been gone a long
time and it was filled with leaves, dim and not easy to follow. It
ended as nearly all trails do; it branched off to right and left, grew
dimmer and slimmer, degenerated to a deer path, petered out to a
squirrel track, ran up a tree and ended in a knot hole. I was not
sorry. It left me free to follow my nose, my inclination and the compass.

There are men who, on finding themselves alone in a pathless forest,
become appalled, almost panic stricken. The vastness of an unbroken
wilderness subdues them and they quail before the relentless, untamed
forces of nature. These are the men who grow enthusiastic--at home--
about sylvan life, outdoor sports, but always strike camp and come home
rather sooner than they intended. And there be some who plunge into an
unbroken forest with a feeling of fresh, free, invigorating delight, as
they might dash into a crisp ocean surf on a hot day. These know that
nature is stern, hard, immovable and terrible in unrelenting cruelty.
When wintry winds are out and the mercury far below zero, she will
allow her mos