, he left
a written note to explain his absence, and to indicate where he had left
a plentiful _cache_ of food and matches--though he had no expectation
that any human hands would find them!

How Simpson found his way alone by the lake and forest might well make a
story in itself, for to hear him tell it is to _know_ the passionate
loneliness of soul that a man can feel when the Wilderness holds him in
the hollow of its illimitable hand--and laughs. It is also to admire his
indomitable pluck.

He claims no skill, declaring that he followed the almost invisible
trail mechanically, and without thinking. And this, doubtless, is the
truth. He relied upon the guiding of the unconscious mind, which is
instinct. Perhaps, too, some sense of orientation, known to animals and
primitive men, may have helped as well, for through all that tangled
region he succeeded in reaching the exact spot where Defago had hidden
the canoe nearly three days before with the remark, "Strike doo west
across the lake into the sun to find the camp."

There was not much sun left to guide him, but he used his compass to the
best of his ability, embarking in the frail craft for the last twelve
miles of his journey with a sensation of immense relief that the forest
was at last behind him. And, fortunately, the water was calm; he took
his line across the center of the lake instead of coasting round the
shores for another twenty miles. Fortunately, too, the other hunters
were back. The light of their fires furnished a steering point without
which he might have searched all night long for the actual position of
the camp.

It was close upon midnight all the same when his canoe grated on the
sandy cove, and Hank, Punk and his uncle, disturbed in their sleep by
his cries, ran quickly down and helped a very exhausted and broken
specimen of Scotch humanity over the rocks toward a dying fire.

VI

The sudden entrance of his prosaic uncle into this world of wizardry
and horror that had haunted him without interruption now for two days
and two nights, had the immediate effect of giving to the affair an
entirely new aspect. The sound of that crisp "Hulloa, my boy! And what's
up _now_?" and the grasp of that dry and vigorous hand introduced
another standard of judgment. A revulsion of feeling washed through him.
He realized that he had let himself "go" rather badly. He even felt
vaguely ashamed of himself. The native hard-headedness of his race
reclaim