One thing Paul had made sure to fetch along with him when taking this big hike, and that was his little camp hatchet. Fritz had begged to be allowed to carry his old Marlin shotgun, under the plea that they might run across some ferocious animal like a wildcat, or a skunk, and would find a good use for the reliable firearm; but the scoutmaster had set his foot down firmly there.
But they would have to make numerous fires while on the way, and a little hatchet was apt to come in very handy.
And the feel of it in his belt had given Paul his idea about "blazing" the trees just as soon as they no longer had the trapper's path to serve them as a guide against their return.
It is a very easy thing to make a trail in this way; only care must always be taken to make the slices, showing the white wood underneath the bark, on that side of the tree most likely to be seen by the returning pilgrim. Great loss of time must result if one always had to go behind every tree in order to find the blaze that had been so carefully given, not to mention the chances of becoming confused, and eventually completely turned around.
That path twisted and turned in the most amazing and perplexing manner possible.
Although Paul had purposely warned the boys to try and keep tabs of the points of the compass as they passed along, in less than ten minutes after striking the swamp proper it is doubtful whether one of them could have told correctly just where the north lay, if asked suddenly; though by figuring it out, looking at the sun, and all that, they might have replied with a certain amount of accuracy after a while.
But then they felt sure Paul knew; and somehow or other they had always been in the habit of relying on the scoutmaster to do some of their thinking for them—a bad habit it is, too, for any boys to let themselves fall into, and one that Paul often took them to task for. They would cheerfully admit the folly of such a course, and promise to reform, yet on the next occasion it would be the same old story of depending on Paul.
"Path seems to be petering out a heap, Paul," remarked Seth, when another little time had crept along, and they had penetrated still deeper into the swamp, with a very desolate scene all around them, water surrounding many of the trees that grew there with swollen boles, such as always seems to be the case where they exist in swampy regions.
"Yes, I was thinking that myself," replied the other; "and it's about time for me to begin using my little hatchet, even if I don't happen to be George Washington."
"Let's stop for a breath, and listen," suggested Eben; "who knows now but what we might be nearer where the balloon dropped than we thought. P'raps we could even get an answer if we whooped her up a bit."