"Well, go on," pleaded the leader of the second patrol, "I'm dead stuck on this thing, for I can see what lots of fun we will have with it up in the woods. How are you going to tell Mr. Gordon that we hiked out of here, and headed due west from this point?"
"Oh!" answered Paul, readily enough, "I might use just the letter W; but you see that wouldn't do for an Indian, who doesn't know what it means. To him west means the setting sun, just as east is signified by its rising, and noon by an overhead disc. So suppose I draw a rude hand, with the finger pointing toward a sun that
is half down behind a line? Wouldn't that be apt to tell him we went west from here?"
"Why, dead sure. He couldn't mistake that. The level line I take it is meant for the horizon?" Jud continued, deeply impressed by the simplicity of this method of communicating between separated friends.
"Yes. Well, now he knows which way we've gone. We don't know ourselves just how far we expect to hike this afternoon. It may be only a mile, and it may be two. But we want to tell him that we mean to go into camp, and that the setting sun will find us with our tents up, and a fire burning."
Paul, while speaking, started to once more make some marks on the balance of the smooth bark, which he had himself peeled from a nearby birch.
"There," he presently declared, holding the pad up, "you see how I've made the camp. The tents are set, supper cooking, and just twenty-one little marks tell that so many soldiers are around the fire, all but three who stand guard. And in beyond, the sun is going down, almost out of sight in fact. No trouble about such a simple story, eh, Jud?"
"It's as plain as a book, plainer than most I've ever read. No getting mixed up in such a story.
But I'm wondering what that big circle close to the camp means?" and Jud pointed as he spoke.
"Oh! I'm glad you spoke. Mr. Gordon himself might well wonder what that was, for I left out the most important part. Now watch, and tell me if you can hit it," with which remark Paul made several tiny dashes with his pencil.