"Come 'long up to camp," he called. Once in the wilderness, we made no distinctions as to master and servant; we were all companions together. Hence George's familiar manner of address.
"When I land two more trout," I shouted back.
"You've got enough; come 'long now," he pleaded. There was that in his tone that excited my curiosity; he seemed all of a sudden to have acquired an unusual fondness for my society. "What's the matter, George?" I asked.
"I've been about lost," he returned. "Come on and I'll tell you."
I was astonished. I had seen George drop a pack in the bush, where everything for miles around looked alike to me, and without marking the spot or apparently taking note of any guiding signs, he would go directly to it again. I was with him one pitch-dark night when he left a pack among alders and willows in the depth of a marsh, and in the morning he went back two miles straight to the very spot. How a man that could do this could get lost was beyond my understanding. I hurried up to camp.
"How did it happen, George?" I asked.
"I just got turned 'round," he replied. "I didn't have any grub, and I didn't have a pistol, or a fishhook, or any way to get grub, and I didn't have a compass, and I was scared."
"But don't you know how you got lost?" I persisted.
"No, I don't," said George. "I just got lost. But I found myself pretty quick. I never got lost before."
The only way I could account for it was that he had permitted his thoughts to wander. I asked him what he would have done if he had not been able to find his way back.