“Feet, of course. Riding backwards always makes me car-ill.”
“It’s down hill, that’s one consolation,” came from Jack. “Well, come on. All ready! Hike!” and he marched off, swinging a long stick he had picked up to use Alpine-stock fashion.
There was a patch of woodland to go through, a fairly good path traversing it. The party of young people went along, talking and laughing, occasionally breaking into song as one or another started a familiar melody.
“Say, Jack,” remarked Cora at length, “aren’t these woods pretty long?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean oughtn’t we to be out of them by this time? Are you sure you’re going the right way?”
“Well, I never was here before,” said Jack, “but I set our course by compass,” and he indicated the little instrument on his watch chain.
“We started to walk due west,” he said, “up the mountain. Now we are going east, as you can see, because the setting sun is at our backs. So we are going toward camp.”
“But we swung off to the right as we came up the mountain,” Cora went on.
“Exactly, a sort of northwest course,” agreed Jack. “And now we are heading southeast, which is exactly the reverse. Look for yourself, Sis.”