"Can you not retrace your steps to the river?" he asked mildly, and without show of fear.
"We should be able to strike the stream; but, having done so, I could not say whether we were above or below the canoe, and we might travel for hours in the wrong direction."
"We would be able to learn our course by the current, and if it be not possible to find the boat, then must we go up the river to warn the volunteers."
"And leave Simon Kenton in the hands of the savage brutes?" I asked angrily, grown unreasoning in my nervous fears and the knowledge that I had made a fool of myself.
"We are not leaving Kenton, because we have never found him, and since, as seems true, we only wander about aimlessly, would it not be wisest to think of the others, who rely upon us to point out the danger which may await them?"
Paul Sampson was speaking like a sensible lad, and I realized it fully. He, the boy ignorant of woodcraft, should have been the leader, and I wished most devoutly I had consulted with him before setting out on this wild-goose chase.
While one might have counted twenty I stood unwilling to acknowledge my helplessness, and then something like a gleam of common sense came into my mind. I stood ready to confess that I had acted like a simple, and he must have understood something of the truth, when I said:
"It shall be as you propose, Paul, and we'll make for the river; but this time I am not counting on taking the lead, having already shown that I have no right to direct our movements."
"If you despair like this, then are we lost indeed," he said mildly. "Remember that I know nothing whatever of such work. Go on as before, using your best efforts to lead us to the river. Then we should aim to meet the volunteers, so it seems to me, forgetting poor Kenton because of the many others who need to know exactly what has happened here."
Without attempting an argument, even had I been able to find one which would warrant our traveling to and fro as we had done, I acted upon his suggestion.