When Will realized that he was lost in the woods, of a stormy winter’s night, for a few moments he ran blindly forward, anyhow, anywhere, till he stopped simply because he had not another breath in him.
He leaned against a tree then, to quiet himself. Setting his wits at work he remembered that when he had been skating away from camp the wind had been directly behind him. If now he faced the wind he must be facing toward the camp. Everything was easy enough, after all.
But in a few moments he found that in among the eddies of the wood, face which way he might, he was always facing the wind!
As soon as he had breath enough he shouted with all his might, over and over again; a dull, faint echo answered him—an echo like a child’s cry.
All at once he recollected that catamount tolling the men out with a child’s cry, and his heart stood still. If that sound were a catamount! He began to run—tripping, stumbling, hitting outstretched boughs and fetching down on himself plunges of snow. Finally he brought up against a moss-covered giant of the wood, his lungs a furnace, his throat like burning brass.
He sat down on a fallen log. The snow was floating and eddying and falling round him. Now and again a soft bough swept low and touched his cheek in a sort of cold caress. He thought he would lie down presently under the lee of the log and stay all night, he was so tired.
Perhaps sitting there, his head bent on his knees, Will did lose himself an instant; for he started suddenly as if from a dream of the Wild Huntsman and the Spirits of the Wood streaming by with lights and shouts in the forest.
He recalled directly Old Uncle’s once saying that a person lost in the woods should on no account go to sleep, but should keep on moving. He rose, pulled up the collar of his reefer, pulled down the ears of his cap, and set out to keep moving. He had a singular feeling in doing so that somehow he was obeying Old Uncle and got a sort of comfort from it.
It was a mild storm, but Will was obliged to use a good deal of effort to walk in the damp snow. He felt that he must now be really making headway somewhere; and he trudged and trudged and trudged, quite sure his way pointed to camp at last, for if he were able to keep it up and go on he must skirt the whole lake before morning, and so come to the camp. And on he walked and walked.
His legs ached, his back ached, his throat ached, his feet ached, his toes tingled. By and by he stumbled over another great log. What was this? His skates that he had dropped the time he had sat down and had come near falling asleep? Oh, it was the same log! He had come back to it! He had been traveling round and round in a circle!
Will sat down on the log again and leaned against the tree. In spite of himself the tears spurted forth. He was lost in the woods. He was going to freeze and die there. He was going to be buried in the snow. He would never see Aunt Susan again. Oh, if he had only been good to Ally when she held out her little well hand to him the other morning! The Spinning Song, that Janet had been playing when he threw down his axe, sent its sweet sound whirring in his ears.
Oh, if he could sit down by Aunt Rose again with his Greek! Oh! why had he been such an idiot? Why hadn’t he understood that Old Uncle knew best? How tired he was! How hungry he was! Why had he left Aunt Susan’s broiled chicken and slices of bread and jam, his own white bed, that crackling fire on the old winking and blinking knights-at-arms andirons, the boys’ games, little Essie and Ally? Even Erminie and Bobbo, who regarded him as the torment of their lives, seemed dear to him at that moment. Oh! was it true that they were all so happy, so warm, so comfortable, never dreaming of him alone and lost and dying in these dark stormy woods full of wild beasts!
Yes. It was all up with him. He had been a wicked boy; he must take what came. But how they would all feel! Ally and Essie would cry fit to break their hearts. Old Uncle and Uncle Billy—oh, it would be dreary in the Valley! And his dear, dear, dear Aunt Susan, the only mother he had ever known—the image of her pale sweet face was too much for him, and he was crying himself with all his might. And then, wearied out, and sending up now a prayer to Heaven that he might not die, and now a prayer that they might not feel too bad at home—all at once he was sound asleep, and the great hemlock-tree was bending down its branches heavy with snow about him, and sheltering him.
When at last, aroused by a disturbance about him, the cry of voices, the blast of horns, the flash of lanterns, Will sleepily opened his eyes again, he might have thought it was heaven, with some great light glowing on a heavenly spirit’s face, only that he knew he deserved nothing of that sort! In another moment he saw that it was Aunt Susan, and without asking how she came there he threw himself into her arms.
The facts in the case were, that when Will had not returned to the camp there had been an alarm given. The whole body of men had gone out in search-parties after him and Pincher; for Pincher, too, was gone. It was one of these parties, passing in the distance, that had given Will his instant’s dream of the Wild Huntsman.
And Old Uncle, driving down from the upper camp, with a jingle of bells and flashing of sleigh-lamps, was passing just as a group of the men had paused wondering at the place not far from the wayside where for a circle of some hundred yards in diameter the snow was somewhat trodden down around the old post-office tree (the very circle where poor Will had done his tramping), and naturally Old Uncle had stopped and come to see what was the cause of the excitement. Aunt Susan had alighted too, and followed, and had been first of all to see Will in beneath the broad hemlock boughs.
In that moment of joy and relief and gratitude, Will never noticed the big pea-jacket that had been spread over him and from which Pincher was shaking the snow.
“I’ll—I’ll go to Bowdoin, Uncle,” Will was saying, standing between Old Uncle and Aunt Susan. “I’ll—I’ll learn the lines of the Greek ships by heart. I’ll—I’ll go to Bowdoin!”
Then he was in the sleigh, cuddled under the robes, ready for the drive to the lean-to of bark and boughs beside the long low log house of the camp, where Old Uncle and Aunt Susan were going to rough it for the night.
“I guess he’s cured,” muttered Pincher to Old Uncle, handing up the reins. “I guess he’s cured. I ain’t been fur off none er the time. And I guess he’s hed all he wants o’ loggin.’ And I’ll warrant he won’t run away to sea, nuther! He’s cured.”