He made his way down to the lake and contrived a cold compress on his head with his handkerchief, and began to think of making his way home. He was so dazed, still, that he entirely forgot the old lumber road by which he had come in, and started through the woods in what seemed to be the direction of the cabin.
He felt very weak and sick when he attempted to walk, but he kept going for a long time, till he came out upon a wide, half-burned strip, choked with wild-raspberry vines. A rapid, shallow brook hurried down the middle of the opening.
He had never seen this place before that he could remember, and suddenly it seemed to him that all his directions had gone suddenly wrong. He had not the slightest idea in which direction the cabin lay.
At this moment it occurred to him that he had a pocket compass. He consulted it, tried to think out his position, but his head ached too violently for any mental effort. However, he set out again in a new direction, and, after half an hour’s unsteady walking, came into another raspberry slash—which he presently recognized as the same one he had passed before.
At this new horror added to his pain and weakness, his strength failed entirely. He fell among the flowering canes and lay there for a long time, partly in a sort of stupor, partly in dull anger against the stupid recklessness of men who go into the woods with rifles having an effective range of two miles.
He was parched with thirst and fever, but could hardly summon energy enough to crawl down to the stream. Finally he accomplished it, drank, and dipped his head in the water, and felt refreshed. He was able to think more clearly.
He had his compass; he knew the directions, but he could form no sort of idea whether the cabin lay north, south, east, or west. He could not remember definitely in which direction he had traveled after meeting Larue, and his wanderings since that time had completely confused him.
As he lay there he heard the murmur of bees among the raspberry blossoms. They were probably his own bees, he reflected dimly, and he envied them their wings and their instinct that led them straight home across the forest. And then it struck him that he could not possibly be more than two miles from home, or the bees would not be working there in such numbers.
He thought he saw a chance of help. A laden bee flies home in a proverbially straight line. He watched the insects as they crawled over the blossoms and finally rose laden into the air. They circled, rising in spirals, and then darted across the open space and over the tree-tops. It was easy to follow the black specks for some distance against the blue sky.
Carl sighted their course carefully with the compass, took another drink at the stream, and set off on their trail. It was a painful tramp. His head ached excruciatingly, and when by accident he tripped or stumbled, the jar left him weak almost to fainting. A dozen times he sat down to rest and almost despaired of getting anywhere.