He tried to determine if he could find the location of the road. This he might easily have done had there been any travel over it just then; but unfortunately the guns were growling almost continuously, so that try as he would he failed to discover any sound of moving vans or advancing batteries going to the front, it might be Red Cross hospital ambulances rapidly speeding toward Paris with their loads of grievously wounded partisans.
When a full half hour had slipped by, as near as Bumpus could gauge time, he began to realize that after all he had actually lost himself, a thing he had so loudly boasted could never happen again.
Bumpus was thoroughly disgusted. He hated to lift his voice and try to attract the attention of his friends. It would make him feel like one of the helpless babes in the woods to cry for help, and wait there until one of his chums came out to pilot him into camp.
“Well,” he was saying to himself in a bitter vein, “of all the chumps you certainly take the cake, Bumpus Hawtree. Now if this were out there among the Rockies, or in one of the big Maine woods, there might be a little excuse for your getting mixed in your bearings; but to think of doing it over here in a silly little French forest! After this I’d better get them to attach a horn to my neck, so I can blow a blast whenever I step out of camp, and let them know where I’m at.”
Although heartily ashamed at being compelled to do so, he even throttled his chagrin enough to raise his voice and try to shout. Somehow or other the effort did not seem to be much of a success. His voice was husky, so that he could not do himself justice; and then again those rival guns kept up such a constant booming sound that it muffled his cries to a great extent.
At any rate, after keeping this up for a stretch, Bumpus grew disconsolate and determined not to bother any more.
“I’ll just paddle around a while longer, hoping that something may turn up to give me a pointer,” he told himself, trying to appear careless as to results. “But if in the end I fail, why, me to curl up and put in the rest of the night here. I guess it won’t rain on me; and once morning comes I’ll find a road that’ll take me somewhere.”
After that he pushed on again, trying a new tack, which seemed to promise better results. He could tell where the north lay easily enough; on account of all the firing that was going on; yes, and doubtless Paris was in the opposite quarter, although he failed to discover signs in the sky to indicate this fact, such as may usually be found where there is a big electric-lighted city. The trouble with Bumpus was he could not tell for the life of him whether his three chums might be found to the north, east, or west; and that made two chances to one that he was going wrong.
He figured that much more than an hour must have elapsed since he became—he was going to say “bewildered,” but on second thoughts pronounced that disagreeable word, “lost.” For aught he knew his chums might be a mile or two away from him by that time. Bumpus was also getting pretty tired. His feet felt like clogs, since he was never an extra good walker.
“Well, I’ve got to come to it, I guess,” he finally observed, as he wiped his streaming brow with his big red bandanna. “I’ll just push on about five minutes longer, for it strikes me the woods seem lighter ahead there. Now it would be a fine thing if after all I ran onto the road.”