“I feel as if we had come out of the nowhere into the here,” observed Nancy in a sad, thin voice.
“I don’t think there is any here,” replied Elinor, endeavoring to wash the dust from her face with her handkerchief and some eau de cologne. “This is just as much nowhere as where we came from.”
“Do you know, Elinor,” said Nancy after a pause, in which the two girls looked about them hopelessly, “I believe we are lost. I have been thinking so for the last hour. Billie is afraid to tell us, and so is Mary, but I have suspected it ever since we lost sight of the railroad.”
“And this could hardly be called a road. It’s nothing but a trail through sage brush.”
“It would be a pity to leave our bones to whiten on the desert,” observed Nancy cheerfully.
“I shall make tea,” exclaimed Elinor with sudden inspiration. “If you are lost in the desert on the seventh of July, drink a cup of tea. It will keep your veins from swelling and bring wisdom and comfort.”
By the time Billie and Mary had put on a new tire the tea was ready, and seated on the sand in a circle, the thirsty travelers sipped the delicious beverage. Billie was very quiet and black care sat upon her brow. Mary also was silent. The truth is there was no trail at all. They had lost it a mile back.
Now a trail is a very subtle and illusive thing, once it’s lost, and one’s imagination plays many strange tricks in a desert of sage brush. A dozen times Mary had whispered to Billie: “There’s the trail,” and Billie had replied, “That looks a good deal more like it to the right.” No matter which way they looked they saw the lines which marked the trail. And when they looked again, the lines had shifted into a new direction.
At last Billie rose up and faced the company.
“I have to report to you that we are lost,” she said. “We are completely and utterly lost and have been for two hours. It’s a quarter to five o’clock and we can’t decide whether to turn back Eastward or go on toward the West. I leave it to the company.”