"Mr. Clark, were you ever lost?" continued the tireless asker.
"Why, course I was, an' more than once. Every one that goes in the woods is bound to get lost once in awhile."
"What—do the Indians?"
"Of course! Why not? They're human, an' I tell you when you hear a man brag that he never was lost, I know he never was far from his mother's apron string. Every one is bound to get lost, but the real woodsman gets out all right; that's the difference."
"Well, what would you do if you got lost?"
"Depends on where. If it was a country that I didn't know, and I had friends in camp, after I'd tried my best I'd jest set right down and make two [360] smoke fires. 'Course, if I was alone I'd try to make a bee line in the likeliest direction, an' this is easy to make if ye kin see the sun and stars, but stormy weather 'tain't possible. No man kin do it, an' if ye don't know the country ye have to follow some stream; but I'm sorry for ye if ever ye have to do that, for it's the worst walking on earth. It will surely bring ye out some place—that is, it will keep ye from walking in a circle—but ye can't make more than four or five miles a day on it."
"Can't you get your direction from moss on the tree trunks?"
"Naw! Jest try it an' see; moss on the north side of a tree and rock; biggest branches on the south of a trunk; top of a Hemlock pointing to east; the biggest rings of growth on the south side of a stump, an' so on. It fits a tree standin' out by itself in the open—the biggest ring is in the south, but it don't fit a tree on the south side of an opening; then the biggest rings is on the north. If ye have a compass in hand it's all kind o' half true—that is, just a little bit true; but it ain't true; it's on'y a big lie, when ye'r scared out o' your wits an' needin' to know. I never seen but one good compass plant, an' that was the prairie Golden Rod. Get a bunch of them in the open and the most of them point north, but under cover of taller truck they jest point every which way for Sunday.