He began his search for the trail of the mysterious creature, full of hope that he would quickly pick it up. But in this he was disappointed, for he was unable to locate it.
“It’s a case of now you see it and now you don’t,” he muttered as he looked about him. “Well, guess I might as well get back to camp. I’ll bet they are wondering what has become of me,” he chuckled.
But which way should he go? Not until he was ready to start had it occurred to him that there could be any question about so simple a matter. He would simply go back the way he had come. But now, as he paused and looked about, he was forced to admit to himself that he had no idea as to the direction of the lake.
“I wonder if I’m lost,” he thought.
He remembered now how many times the boys had warned him how easily a man could get lost in the big Maine woods. But he was not worried. He would, of course, find his way out in a short time. It would at the most mean only a few hours’ delay.
“I’ll go in a straight line till I run across a brook, and then all I’ll have to do will be to follow it to the lake, and then follow the lake round to the camp,” he told himself as he started off.
He pushed his way through the woods as rapidly as possible, for he wanted to get back without any unnecessary delay. But he came to no stream, and after more than an hour had passed, he decided to take another short rest.
He again sat down on a fallen tree trunk.
“Brooks don’t seem to be as thick up here as I thought they were,” he said to himself, as he took his jack knife from his pocket.
It had long been a habit with Rex to carve his initials on the trunk of a tree whenever he was in the woods, and now he started to do it almost without thinking. He had cut an R through the bark close to his side, when he happened to raise his eyes to meet the log a little farther toward the end. There, only a few feet from where he sat, were some initials cut in the bark. He moved over so that he could read them. His eyes opened wide with astonishment as he saw R. D. in large letters.