“My God!” she moaned, “I am lost!”
She sunk down on the wet earth almost despairfully.
Then her old brave spirit reasserted itself.
“What a poor miserable little coward I am!” she exclaimed, almost angry with herself. “What can I do that is more likely to get me out of my trouble than to try again?”
It was growing dark very fast now and the cold rain was falling as slowly and monotonously as ever; but she would not allow herself to think of either the coming night or the drizzling rain—and she set out for home a second time quite bravely.
It was no desirable task that she had before her, and she did not look upon her weary walk as a mere pleasure trip, by any means. Still that bold, hopeful spirit that had borne her up through her adventures with the chief that afternoon was with her now; and she was far from being despondent.
“If I try, and keep trying,” she mused, as she hurried on, “I may reach home in safety by-and-by; and if I am really lost and must stay in the forest, I suppose there is very little choice in sleeping-places. So, upon the whole, I think I had better keep traveling about as long as I can. I will try and not get faint-hearted again, anyway.”
In twenty minutes it was dark as Erebus!
Still the girl pressed bravely forward through the night. She could no longer see with any certainty. Keeping any specific course was out of the question; and it was with great difficulty that she kept her feet, at times, among the fallen trees and tangled undergrowth. But she tried to keep a bold heart.
Glancing ahead, through the blackness, to a dense thicket just in advance, she saw something that made her pause in terror. It was a pair of eyes!