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 narrow path that led into the woods. Wearily Nyoda
walked after her. She was at her wits' end.

"It's no use, Hinpoha," she said sadly. "This path isn't any
better than the road. We never went through this gully on the
hike."