“By the way,” said Bill before they had gone far enough to lose sight of the plane, “did you send in any radios?”
“Sure I did,” replied Breene. “I sent in one when the engine first started to cut out. I sent one every few minutes afterward. The last one I sent said that we were about to land in the timber.”
“Did you give them any location at all?”
“I told them that we were over a lake when the engine started missing. Then I told them that we had turned around. They were the only locations that I knew anything about. I never saw this country before, Lieutenant.”
“Perhaps they will be able to figure about where we went down, and perhaps they won’t,” said Bill as he started ahead again.
The traveling was rough, for the woods were practically devoid of trails. Once in a while they would come across a game trail, but these animal paths seldom led in the direction which the two marooned aviators wished to go. The high hills and mountain sides prevented them from selecting a compass course and sticking to it. They were continually turning and veering around to miss obstacles.
Bill figured that they should reach a stream running to the north about five miles from their plane. It was about eleven o’clock when they started walking and they had not reached the stream by one. The five miles shown on the map as the distance to the creek was in a direct line, but just how many miles Bill and his mechanic had walked, neither one had any idea. However, the stream had not been reached.
Finally they arrived on the top of a ridge and sat down to rest. They could see that the ridge pointed east and west. Accordingly the streams in the vicinity must run the same direction. Where was that stream toward which Bill had been heading?
He studied his map as they sat there and was convinced that the plane had landed several miles farther north than he thought. Actually it made no difference, for all of the streams in the district flowed into the Umpqua. After a short rest they started down the end of the ridge and came to a stream. No matter what happened now, they were assured of water.
The going was harder along the stream bank than through the timber. Streams have a habit of picking out the most impossible places to cut through hillsides, wash away soft ground and form ravines or deposit large stones and boulders. If the airmen were not floundering around in mud, they were slipping over rocks or climbing up steep banks. All of these obstacles were in addition to those normally found in a forest, such as tangled vines under foot, thick underbrush, numerous tree trunks and a myriad of ferns. It was a case of forging ahead as best they could.