course she'll come back," said Nyoda confidently, but her
heart was like water within her. These girls were all in her
charge for the summer and she was responsible for their welfare.
What had become of Migwan? The party that finally started out
were Nyoda, Hinpoha, Sahwah and the man who had watched the camp
while the girls were away, who drove his wagon along the roadway
and let the girls ride in turn. They explored the woods back to
where the two paths emerged from the thicket, calling and
searching with lanterns. All to no purpose. They went over
every inch of the path down which Migwan had disappeared. Now
Migwan, in coming through, had strayed off the path, which was
very hard to follow, and the place where she had gone over the
edge was at least twenty feet from the true path. The searchers
therefore did not find the evidence of her fall, and as the time
when they stood there and called to her corresponded with the
time when Migwan lay in a dead faint, she made no response, and
they passed on.

The night wore on and the searchers grew more and more alarmed.
Hinpoha dissolved in tears and declared she just couldn't live
without Migwan. Nyoda tried to comfort her with all sorts of
cheering possibilities, but her own heart was troubled and
anxious. They retraced their route back to the place where they
had camped the night before, but found nothing. Then, discouraged
and panic-stricken, they began to retrace their steps to camp.
Morning light brought a new disclosure. Not only had they lost
Migwan somewhere in the great woods, but they themselves were
completely off the trail of the day before. At one of the dim
cross-roads they had made a misturn, and were now wandering
around without the slightest notion of where they were going.
"Well, I'll be jiggered," said the man with the wagon. "I thought
I knew these here woods pretty well, but I'm blamed if I know
where we are now. Everything looks turned around; I'd swear now,
that that was the west over there, yet there is the sun a-risin'
as big as life. I'm plumb addled!"

They advanced uncertainly, looking closely for the red-marked
trees of the hike. "This road looks as if it went somewhere,"
said Hinpoha. They stuck to the road for a while but soon saw a
sign board reading, "Cambridge, 7 miles." Cambridge was a town
lying exactly in the opposite direction from Loon Lake.
Bewildered, they turned back and Hinpoha left the main road and
followed a n