"Of course she'll come back," said Nyoda confidently, but her heart was like water within her. These girls were all in her charge for the summer and she was responsible for their welfare. What had become of Migwan? The party that finally started out were Nyoda, Hinpoha, Sahwah and the man who had watched the camp while the girls were away, who drove his wagon along the roadway and let the girls ride in turn. They explored the woods back to where the two paths emerged from the thicket, calling and searching with lanterns. All to no purpose. They went over every inch of the path down which Migwan had disappeared. Now Migwan, in coming through, had strayed off the path, which was very hard to follow, and the place where she had gone over the edge was at least twenty feet from the true path. The searchers therefore did not find the evidence of her fall, and as the time when they stood there and called to her corresponded with the time when Migwan lay in a dead faint, she made no response, and they passed on.
The night wore on and the searchers grew more and more alarmed. Hinpoha dissolved in tears and declared she just couldn't live without Migwan. Nyoda tried to comfort her with all sorts of cheering possibilities, but her own heart was troubled and anxious. They retraced their route back to the place where they had camped the night before, but found nothing. Then, discouraged and panic-stricken, they began to retrace their steps to camp. Morning light brought a new disclosure. Not only had they lost Migwan somewhere in the great woods, but they themselves were completely off the trail of the day before. At one of the dim cross-roads they had made a misturn, and were now wandering around without the slightest notion of where they were going. "Well, I'll be jiggered," said the man with the wagon. "I thought I knew these here woods pretty well, but I'm blamed if I know where we are now. Everything looks turned around; I'd swear now, that that was the west over there, yet there is the sun a-risin' as big as life. I'm plumb addled!"
They advanced uncertainly, looking closely for the red-marked trees of the hike. "This road looks as if it went somewhere," said Hinpoha. They stuck to the road for a while but soon saw a sign board reading, "Cambridge, 7 miles." Cambridge was a town lying exactly in the opposite direction from Loon Lake. Bewildered, they turned back and Hinpoha left the main road and followed a narrow path that led into the woods. Wearily Nyoda walked after her. She was at her wits' end.
"It's no use, Hinpoha," she said sadly. "This path isn't any better than the road. We never went through this gully on the hike."
"Still, it might lead to one we know," answered Hinpoha, and they kept on. The path seemed endless, and was hard to walk in, for it was on the side of a hill.
"Let's turn back," pleaded Nyoda. "We're only wasting our strength without getting anywhere."
"Maybe we had better," answered Hinpoha in a discouraged tone. Just then the path turned sharply, and as they rounded the corner they came upon a figure sitting in the long grass. "Migwan!" cried Nyoda, and stood as if petrified. Hinpoha pointed her finger and tried to sing "O'ertaken," but burst into tears instead and fell on Migwan's neck. Explanations were soon made and Migwan was carried to the wagon to be petted and fussed over as if she had been lost for a year.
So, wearied but triumphant, the hunting party returned to camp with the trophy of the chase.