"Well, it's better to pack back an empty gun than no gun at all," he decided philosophically. "Let me see, I think we came up that way. They'll build a big fire so I can see it and I ought to be there within half an hour at least."
The lad struck out confidently. He had been lost in the wilderness before, and though he felt a slight uneasiness he had no doubt of his ability to find the camp eventually.
He walked vigorously for half an hour. Then he halted. The same impressive silence surrounded him.
"I think I have been going a little too far to the left," he decided. He changed his course and plodded on methodically again.
Another half hour passed and once more the lad paused, this time with the realization strong upon him that he had lost his way.
Placing both hands to his mouth Tad uttered a long drawn
"C-o-o-e-e-e!" He listened intently, then repeated the call.
The sound of his own voice almost frightened him.
"Oh, I'm lost!" he cried, now fully appreciating his position.
The panic of the lost seized him and Tad ran this way and that, plunging ahead for some distance, then swerving to the right or to the left in a desperate attempt to free himself from the endless thicket, bruising his body from contact with the trunks of the trees and cutting his hands as they struck the rocks violently when he fell.
"Tad Butler, you stop this!" he commanded sternly, bringing himself up sharply. "I didn't think you were such a silly kid as to be afraid of the dark." But in his innermost heart the lad knew that it was not the shadows that had so upset him. It was the feeling of being lost in an unknown forest.