He stopped for about a quarter of a minute to consider, and then, like many another unfortunate traveller, he took the wrong path.
Away he dashed along the track which led to the left, stopping every now and then to shout at the top of his voice. At last his breath began to fail him, and then he rested for a time.
As soon as he had recovered a little, he shouted and shouted again, but no answering shout came back to him, and then he started off again. He did not run now, but he walked rapidly.
If he kept on, he thought, he must soon reach the house to which Adam had gone, but he walked and walked and walked until he felt sure he must have gone two or three miles; but then distances are not judged very accurately in wild places such as this, and Adam might have been mistaken in supposing the house was only a mile and a half away.
This path certainly led somewhere, and he would keep on a little while longer. If he did not soon come to a house, he would turn back.
He did not soon come to a house, and he sat down on a fallen tree to rest. As he sat there, he felt very badly about the matter. As it had so happened that he had not found Adam and the boys, he felt that it would have been better if he had remained by the river. The others had probably arrived there by this time, and when he should get back and tell them what had happened, they would all feel that a great deal of valuable time had been lost by his running away into the woods. He was tired, and hungry, too, and the thought struck him that he did not know how they were going to get anything to eat, unless they all went to the house of which Adam had spoken.
“I’m glad the scoundrels did not run away with Phœnix’s money,” he thought.
And that was the only ray of comfort that seemed to shine across his present miserable existence.
And yet he did not blame himself for what had happened. Perhaps he ought not to have come so far into the woods, but he had done it for the best.
He now arose, and as he did so he looked along a portion of the path which stretched in an almost straight line before him, and at the end of the little vista which it made, he saw some blue and curling smoke.