his forehead--a characteristic action with him when worried.
Thinking I might reassure him, I came out and chided him gently for what
I was pleased to regard as his needless anxiety. It was impossible for
Willie to lose his way very long, I explained, without knowing anything
about my subject. "See how far you can look over these hills. It is not
as if he were in the woods," said I.

Will looked at me steadily and pityingly for a moment. "Go back in the
house, Nell," said he, with a touch of impatience; "you don't know what
you are talking about."

That was true enough, but when I returned obediently to the house I
repeated my opinion that worry over the absent boy was needless, for it
would be difficult, I declared, for one to lose himself where the
range of vision was so extensive as it was from the top of one of these
foothills.

"But suppose," said one of the party, "that you were in the valley
behind one of the foothills--what then?"

This led to an animated discussion as to the danger of getting lost in
this long-range locality, and in the midst of it Will walked in, his
equanimity quite restored.

"It's all right," said he; "I can see the youngster coming along."

We flocked to the stile, and discovered a moving speck in the distance.
Looked at through the field-glasses, it proved to be the belated
courier. Then we appealed to Will to settle the question that had been
under discussion.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he answered, impressively, "if one of you were
lost among these foothills, and a whole regiment started out in search
of you, the chances are ten to one that you would starve to death, to
say the least, before you could be found."

To find the way with ease and locate the trail unerringly over an
endless and monotonous succession of hills identical in appearance is an
ability the Indian possesses, but few are the white men that can imitate
the aborigine. I learned afterward that it was accounted one of Will's
great accomplishments as a scout that he was perfectly at home among the
frozen waves of the prairie ocean.

When the laggard arrived, and was pressed for particulars, he declared
he had traveled eight or ten miles when he found that he was off the
trail. "I thought I was lost," said he; "but after considering the
matter I decided that I had one chance--that was to go back over my own
tracks. The marks of my horse's hoofs led me out on the main trail, and
your tracks were so fresh that I ha