Dick was not as confident he could follow his father's trail as he would have it appear to his mother; but he decided upon the direction in which he would search, and set bravely out heading due west, knowing he could hold such a course by aid of the sun's position, as his father had often explained to him.
Dick was hungry, but scorned to let his mother know it, and tried to dull the edge of his appetite by chewing twigs and blades of grass.
After walking rapidly ten minutes, more careful as to direction than he ever had been, because of the responsibility that rested upon him, he stopped and shouted his father's name; then listened, hoping to hear a reply.
Save for the hum of insect life, no sound came to his anxious ears.
Once more he pressed forward, and again shouted, but without avail.
He continued on until, seeing the trail made by the wagon when they had come in from the stream, he knew he was very near to the border of the valley.
Surely his father would not have gone outside, because he had said before they arrived that only in the Buffalo Meadows were they likely to find game.
Then Dick turned, pushing on in a northerly direction at right angles with the course he had just been pursuing, and halting at five-minute intervals to shout.
His anxiety and hunger increased equally as the day grew older. Try as he might, he could not keep the tears from over-running his eyelids.
The sun was sinking toward the west before he heard aught of human voice save his own; and then a cry of joy and relief burst from his lips as he heard faintly in the distance his own name spoken.