"How the deuce are they going to manage about feeding me?" he thought. "By Gad! if they think they're going to make me go without my dinner——!"
However, Charley presently untied his ankles and his wrists. Ralph tore the bandage from his eyes, stretched himself luxuriously, and looked about him.
They were in the magnificent gloom of a primeval forest. Gigantic trunks of fir and spruce rose on every hand with lofty branches that darkened the heavens. The little patches of sky that showed between seemed immeasurably far off. The fallen monarchs of ages past lay here and there in confusion, rotting by infinitesimally slow degrees. The ground was stony, but stones and fallen trunks alike were largely covered with moss, incredibly soft and thick and green. The moss masked treacherous holes, as Ralph discovered when he attempted to move about. There was no undergrowth except a few spindling berry-bushes, and a low plant with huge leaves called the "devil's club," both pale from lack of sunlight.
The forest grew on a steepish slope. Ralph affirmed to himself that the way home lay straight downhill. He could still hear the voice of the little stream off to one side. He discovered a faintly marked trail that climbed straight from below, and continued on uphill. This explained how Nahnya and Charley had been able to avoid the fallen trunks and the holes. A trail once made never becomes totally effaced. The wildest, most deserted forest wilderness shows such forgotten paths.
So far Ralph's deductions carried him. Later he made a fresh discovery. Facing downhill and looking straight away through the tree trunks, he distinguished the outline of a noble, snow-capped peak a mile or two away. From the direction of the shadows upon it he saw that the sun was slightly to the left of it. As it was now half-past ten or eleven, that peak must therefore be directly south of where he stood. Walking up and down, he searched through the trees and gathered from the suggestions of the outlines of other mountains that the peak was part of a chain running right and left.
Little by little he pieced it all together in his mind. "We shot a big rapid, and paddled for three or four hours, or until we came within hearing of the next big rapid. The big river must flow parallel with that range yonder—that is to say, east and west. I knew it was flowing between mountains. We landed on a big flat rock at the mouth of a stream and struck straight up-hill, which is due north. Blindfolded or not," he said to himself triumphantly, "I guess I won't have much trouble finding my way back if I want to."
Nahnya with a sullen, troubled face, watched Ralph making his observations but offered no comment.
Breakfast or dinner, whichever it was, was eaten in silence. Nahnya and Ralph each wore a mask, and each avoided the other's eyes. Charley was solely concerned with his long-delayed food. Ralph, secretly elated by his own perspicacity, later made no objections to being bound and blindfolded again. It seemed to him rather a ridiculous precaution, because if he ever got as far as this, he would naturally continue by the trail. However, if they wished to give themselves the trouble of carrying him, so be it.
The journey of the morning was repeated, but for a longer period. Ralph marvelled at his bearers' endurance. For at least two hours they toiled with frequent pauses, always uphill. Finally upon laying him down they left him, and he guessed they had come to the next halting-place. A long time passed without his hearing them talk, or hearing any preparations to camp. The possibility of their abandoning him there in the woods occurred to him, causing a disagreeable prickling up and down his spine.
At last he heard Charley's footsteps, and the bandage was removed from his eyes. Still the virgin forest. No sign of Nahnya. More mystifications!