Forgetting all caution, Charley continued to follow in the direction in which the birds had disappeared. On and on he went without a thought of danger. He was sure the birds had not gone far, and he must have one more shot at them before turning back.
All at once, he found himself in a rocky, barren region. He had crossed the marsh, and was rising upon higher ground. This must certainly, he concluded, be a barren beyond the marsh of which Toby had told him, and he suddenly realized that he had gone much farther than he had yet ventured.
In the brief space of time since he had last flushed the birds the wind had risen and was fast gaining strength. Already the snow was drifting so thickly that he could not see the marsh, which lay between the barrens and the forest. But still he was not alarmed.
"I've got five of them anyway," he said exultantly, looking into his bag and admiring the beautiful white birds. "Toby said it was some stunt to shoot ptarmigans. I guess he'll think now that I can shoot most as well as he can."
With no other thought than that he could find his way to the marsh and across it to the forest without difficulty, he turned to retrace his steps.
"Even if I can't see far, I can follow my tracks I made coming in," he said confidently. "That'll be dead easy."
Every moment the wind was rising, and the storm was increasing in fury. Before he had reached the marsh, the gale was sweeping the snow before it in suffocating clouds, and he was forced frequently to turn his back upon it that he might catch his breath.
Presently Charley realized that he had lost the trail of his snowshoe prints, but still confident that he could find it he searched first to the right and then to the left, but nowhere could he discover it.
Then it was that he became anxious, and a vague fear fell upon him, and he rushed madly about in vain search of some sign that would guide him. He could scarcely see twenty feet away, and nowhere within his limited range of vision was a rock or bush or anything that he had ever before seen. Suddenly he knew that he was lost. The thought fell upon him like an overwhelming disaster. All at once he was seized by wild terror. He must find the forest or he would perish! The snow was suffocating him, and his legs were atremble with the effort he had put forth.
Dazed and uncertain he stood, with the wind swirling the snow about him, and then, with no sense of direction, like a panic-stricken animal, he plunged away into the storm.