A sigh of delight ran around the table. “Hurry up, everybody, and put everything you have left into your mouths, so I can collect the plates,” said Sahwah, impatient to start at once.
But when the time came to start Hinpoha had developed such a dizzy headache that going along was out of the question. “It’s nothing serious,” she stoutly maintained, in reply to anxious inquiries. “Too much noise, that’s all. We might call it ‘Mal de racket’!” She would not hear of any of them staying at home with her, however, although Aunt Clara and Nyoda both insisted. “Go on, all of you,” she begged, pressing her hand to her throbbing temples. “It would make it so much worse if I thought I had kept you away from the fun. All I want is to lie down quietly. I’ll be perfectly all right here. If I feel better soon I’ll follow your tracks and either catch up with you or meet you there and come back home with you. Please go.” And so insistent was she that they went without her.
“Be sure you lock the door carefully,” called Aunt Clara.
“And be sure you put out a sign, NO COWS ADMITTED,” said Sahwah. And laughing they set out, leaving her tucked in her bunk. With the cessation of the noise that had almost lifted the roof of the cabin during the dinner hour, the headache gradually disappeared, and in an hour Hinpoha was herself again. Swiftly buckling on her snowshoes she ran out into the stinging air, which seemed like a cool hand laid on her forehead.
She found the trail of the others easily, for the crust was slightly dented in by every step. The way led through a thick strip of woods. Hinpoha noticed that there were many tracks of animals here and wished with all her heart that she knew what they were. “It would be such a grand thing to say to the folks at home, ‘I followed the trail of a ’coon,’ and be sure it was a ’coon,” she said to herself, and then laughed aloud at the ridiculous mistake of the Captain. Then she stood still in delight, for just before her a dark, furry body was slipping along over the snow. “I believe that really is one,” she said to herself joyfully. “I can’t catch him, of course, but maybe he’ll run up a tree—people always talk about ’coons being treed—and then I can see what he looks like.” And she sped after the little animal, who took alarm at her first step and disappeared between the trunks of the trees.
Hinpoha looked for him for a while and then realized it was a hopeless search and with a sigh turned to resume her own way through the woods. Then she stopped in dismay. The broad trail she had been following so easily had vanished from the earth! The only marks on the white ground were those of her own snowshoes. “Of course,” she said, coming to herself with a shake, “I got off the trail when I followed that ’coon. I’ll follow my own tracks back.” But her own tracks led her round and round in a circle, in and out among the tree trunks, and did not end up in what she sought. It took her some minutes to realize that she was actually lost in the woods. Then, of course, the first thing she did was to go into a panic, and run wildly back and forth. “Come, this will never do,” she told herself severely, standing still. “I must stop and think before I do anything else. Let me see, what was it Migwan did the time she was lost up in the Maine woods? She sat down on the ground and wrote poetry, and waited until we came and found her! I can’t write poetry, that’s out of the question, and I can’t sit on the ground, either, it’s too cold. I’ll have to stand up and wait.” But that proved a dreary amusement. It was getting bitterly cold, and a strong wind whistled through the bare branches till it made her flesh creep. To make things worse, an early twilight was setting in and the light was rapidly fading. To keep from taking cold she walked up and down bravely among the trees, growing more terrified every minute. She tried to sing, to call, to shout, to make her voice carry across the snow, but it was lost in the moaning of the wind. Her feet grew numb with the cold and she stamped them vigorously to start up the blood. The crust broke through, and down she went through several feet of snow to her waist. She braced herself with her hands and tried to draw her feet out, but they went through also and she floundered with her face in the icy snowflakes. Then with a growing sense of horror she realized what had happened. The ends of her snowshoes had become firmly wedged under the roots of a tree, and she was unable to pull them out. And her feet, tightly bound to the snowshoes by the pretty straps and buckles, were trapped. She struggled furiously, and only sank deeper in the snow.
As the “syrup party,” as they called themselves, were just ready to cool off the bit of boiled sap that had been given them to taste, the Captain suddenly sprang to his feet and smote his forehead. “Daggers and dirks!” he exclaimed, “I left my sweater hanging right in front of the fire when we came away—you remember it got all wet in the snowball fight this morning—and I bet it’s scorched to cinders by this time. Do you folks mind if I go back to the cabin in a hurry? I got that sweater for Christmas and I hate to lose it so soon. I’m all right, uncle, I can find the way, even if it is getting dark. Don’t hurry yourselves. Give my share of the syrup to Slim. He’s getting thin.” And adjusting his snowshoes with a skilled “jiffy twist,” he was off down the trail.
Now the Captain, although he had been mistaken about the tracks the day before, was nevertheless an observant lad, and when he came to the place where Hinpoha had left the trail, he noticed the marks going off in another direction and stood still and looked at them. He knew that they most likely belonged to Hinpoha, and he knew also that she had not arrived at the sugar camp and he had not met her on the trail coming home, so, putting two and two together, he decided that she must be in the woods somewhere. A mean little instinct whispered to him to go on his way and let her be wherever she was, and get a good fright until the rest found her; then his better nature rose to the top and he decided to hunt her up and show her the trail to meet the others.
“Glory, she certainly did mess up the trail some,” he said to himself, as he followed the marks which wandered up and down and doubled back on themselves and crisscrossed everywhere. It was slow going, for the darkness was hiding the footprints and he had to bend down to the ground to see them clearly. He almost stepped on her at last when he did find her. She was numb from the cold and very nearly asleep and he thought she was dead. The imprisoned snowshoes held her down and he could not pull her out of the snow at first. Finally he suspected what had happened and dug down in and loosened the buckles. It took a good deal of working after she was freed to get life back into the numb feet and ankles, but it was accomplished at last and Hinpoha was ready to walk home.
Then a moment of embarrassment fell between them. Hinpoha flushed and looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry I called you Cicero,” she said, with a sneeze between every word. “You aren’t a Cissy at all. You’re a hero!” And then for no reason at all, except that the afternoon’s strenuous adventure had unstrung her nerves, she burst into tears.