A sense of direction is a gift or instinct. It is the thing that
enables a carrier pigeon that has been taken, shut up in a basket say
from New York to Chicago, to make a few circles in the air when
liberated and start out for home, and by this sense to fly a thousand
miles without a single familiar landmark to guide him and finally land
at his home loft tired and hungry.

No human being ever had this power to the same extent as a pigeon, but
some people seem to keep a sense of direction and a knowledge of the
points of compass in a strange place without really making an effort
to do it. One thing is sure. If we are travelling in a strange country
we must always keep our eyes and ears open if we expect to find our
way alone. We must never trust too implicitly in any "sense of
direction."

Forest travellers are always on the lookout for peculiar landmarks
that they will recognize if they see them again. Oddly shaped trees,
rocks, or stumps, the direction of watercourses and trails, the
position of the sun, all these things will help us to find our way
out of the woods when a less observing traveller who simply tries to
remember the direction he has travelled may become terrified.

Rules which tell people what to do when they are lost are rarely of
much use, because the act of losing our way brings with it such a
confusion of mind that it would be like printing directions for terror
stricken people who are drowning.

Suppose, for example, a boy goes camping for a week or two in the
Adirondacks or Maine woods. If he expects to go about alone, his first