seamed trunks, six feet in diameter, rising a hundred feet before spreading
a single branch.

Meanwhile my mustang kept steadily up the slow-rising trail, and the time
passed. Either the grand old forest had completely bewitched me or the
sweet smell of pine had intoxicated me, for as I rode along utterly content
I entirely forgot about Dick and the trail and where I was heading. Nor did
I come to my senses until Hal snorted and stopped before a tangled
windfall.

Then I glanced down to see only the clean, brown pine-needles. There was no
trail. Perplexed and somewhat anxious, I rode back a piece, expecting
surely to cross the trail. But I did not. I went to the left and to the
right, then circled in a wide curve. No trail! The forest about me seemed
at once familiar and strange.

It was only when the long shadows began to creep under the trees that I
awoke fully to the truth.

I had missed the trail! I was lost in the forest!



IV. LOST IN THE FOREST

For a moment I was dazed. And then came panic. I ran up this ridge and that
one, I rushed to and fro over ground which looked, whatever way I turned,
exactly the same. And I kept saying, "I'm lost! I'm lost!" Not until I
dropped exhausted against a pine-tree did any other thought come to me.