that Harriet was swinging their motor-car in a great circle,
first to the north, then west, then to the south. Two or three miles
back upon the road, before they had made their turn to the south, Eaton
had lost for a few moments the track of the car they had been
following. He had picked it up again at once and before he could speak
of it to Harriet; but now he knew that at that point the car they were
following had left the road, turning off onto the turf at the side and
coming back onto the road a hundred yards beyond.

This place must be nearly due north of him. The road where he had left
Harriet ran north and south; to go north he must parallel this road,
but it was dangerous to move too near to it because it was guarded.
The sky was covered with clouds hiding the stars; the night in the
woods was intensely black except where it was lighted by the fire at
the bridge. To the opposite side, a faint gray glow against the
clouds, which could not be the dawn but must be the reflection of the
electric lights along the public pike which followed the shore of the
lake, gave Eaton inspiration. If he kept this grayness of the clouds
always upon his right, he would be going north.

The wound in Eaton's shoulder still welled blood each time he moved; he
tore strips from the front of his shirt, knotted them together and
bound his useless left arm tightly to his side. He felt in the
darkness to be sure that there was a fresh clip of cartridges in his
automatic pistol; then he started forward.

For the first time now he comprehended the almost impossibility of
traveling in the woods on a dark night. To try to walk swiftly was to
be checked after only two or three steps by sharp collision with some
tree-trunk which he could not see before he felt it, or brought to a
full stop by clumps of tangled, thorny bushes which enmeshed him, or to
be tripped or thrown by some inequality of the ground. When he went
round any of these obstacles he lost his sense of direction and wasted
minutes before he could find again the dim light against the eastern
sky which gave him the compass-points.

As he struggled forward, impatient at these delays, he came several
times upon narrow, unguarded roads and crossed them; at other times the
little wilderness which protected him changed suddenly to a well-kept
lawn where some great house with its garages and out-buildings loomed
ahead, and afraid to cross these open places, he was obliged to re