However, there would be no trouble about skating back; and Will went flying campward against the wind, when the screw of one of his skates snapped and sent him tumbling headlong, rolling over and over. When he had picked himself up, and adjusted the skate again, he could not tell in which direction he had been going, up or down, along or across the lake.
The shores all looked alike. There were no lights of the camp to be seen, whether hidden by the islands or by the projecting shores. Try as he might to find the track of his skates he could not see any, either for the dim light, or for the snow that had fallen and was covering the lake more and more.
When he had skated perhaps a mile, and still saw no lights of the camp, Will was sure he had been turned about, and he reversed his motion and went in the other direction. But still there were no lights—not a twinkle anywhere, and when he hallooed no answer came but a far-off echo.
Well, this would never do, Will said. Some one of all the logging-paths would lead to camp, of course. He took off his skates and climbed the shore, and went trudging and whistling along. Still no lights. But hadn’t the camp been on the edge of the lake? He would wind along the edge, then, and sooner or later he must come to it!
But Will soon found it more than dusky among the trees; and the broad gleam of the lake was gone; and the main logging-path along the shore was gone. He did not know which one of all the dim openings was the right one; the snow was bewildering; it was already dark; he was lost.
IX.
THE NIGHT-STORM IN THE WOODS.
When Will realized that he was lost in the woods, of a stormy winter’s night, for a few moments he ran blindly forward, anyhow, anywhere, till he stopped simply because he had not another breath in him.
He leaned against a tree then, to quiet himself. Setting his wits at work he remembered that when he had been skating away from camp the wind had been directly behind him. If now he faced the wind he must be facing toward the camp. Everything was easy enough, after all.