It was really admirable how he emerged victor in the end; men of riper
powers and experience might have come through the ordeal with less
success. He had himself tolerably well in hand, all things considered,
and his plan of action proves it. Sleep being absolutely out of the
question and traveling an unknown trail in the darkness equally
impracticable, he sat up the whole of that night, rifle in hand, before
a fire he never for a single moment allowed to die down. The severity of
the haunted vigil marked his soul for life; but it was successfully
accomplished; and with the very first signs of dawn he set forth upon
the long return journey to the home camp to get help. As before, 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 Défago had hidden
the canoe nearly three days before with the remark, "Strike doo west
across the lake into the sun to find the camp."