“O, I managed by my eye,” said the doctor, calmly. “I also tried to correct that tendency to swerve to the right that you spoke of, and I think I succeeded. You see, I found I was very much farther away from Hall’s Harbor than I supposed. In fact, your conjecture must have been right, and we were nearer Scott’s Bay by a great deal than we were to Hall’s Harbor. We had swerved very much to the right. As I went on I became convinced of this, and tried constantly and most carefully to guard against it. I succeeded therefore in going almost in a perfectly straight line. But our march was a very fatiguing one, I must confess. It grew dark, too, and we were just on the point of giving up, when we came to a pasture field, and then found the road. We didn’t see any houses near, and couldn’t find how far away any house might be. At first I thought of going to Hall’s Harbor, but finally I concluded to turn to the left, and go on towards Cornwallis. But you, how did you happen to lose your course so completely? Why, you’ve made a complete circle. You must have been turning to the right ever since you left. You’ve got into the Hall’s Harbor road, and are now walking straight towards Hall’s Harbor. What a most extraordinary and most absurd situation! I wouldn’t have believed this to be possible, had it not been first for my own mistake to-day, and now for this one of yours. But it seems to me, Bruce, that your circle has been more complete than mine was. What a tremendous march you must have made!”
Bruce for a few minutes said nothing. The doctor’s quiet way of informing him about his situation bewildered him more than the first discovery had done. A “tremendous” circuit it must indeed have been. How had they managed to go so fast, and reach the road before the doctor’s party? It must have been that chase after Pat which put them astray. After that they had lost all idea of their way, and had wandered on blindly, not knowing where they were going, and for that matter not caring very much, either.
“But are you sure that this is the Hall’s Harbor road?” he asked at length.
“Why, yes—of course it is. It ought to be—we’ve come far enough to get to it. What did you think it was?”
“Why, we thought it was the Scott’s Bay road.”
“The Scott’s Bay road!” cried the doctor, and burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
“Well, sir,” said Bruce, “to tell the truth, we got utterly lost. Pat began chasing a porcupine, and we chased Pat, and followed him wherever he went. At last we lost him. So then we didn’t think about reaching the road at all, but only about finding him. We went on in the direction which he seemed to have taken, and so we came to this road. It was the porcupine that led us here.
“The porcupine,” said the doctor; and he appeared so amused at this idea, that Bruce had to tell him the whole story.
“The fact is,” said the doctor, thoughtfully, after hearing this story, “what you ought to have done is this: You ought at all hazards to have followed the line of the cliff. That would have brought you to Scott’s Bay in a little more than an hour. You could then have gone to the house where the horses were left, and by this time you would have been in comfortable quarters, pitying us poor wanderers.”
“Well,” said Bruce, “we tried to keep close by the cliff, but it ran off in such a direction that we left it, and went in what we thought a truer course.”