He moved rapidly out toward the little creature. It whined as he approached, and an answering whine came from below. The mother, its front hair singed, was again on the tree trunk. He feared if he went farther the limb would break, but it was his only hope, for he could not shake the little creature off. So he moved out, the branch crackling ominously beneath him, and grabbed it by the nape of its neck. It whined piercingly and clung to the tree. He wrenched it off just as the lynx had reached the same branch. Holding it up so that its mother might clearly see what he was doing, he threw it into the pool below. At this moment the infuriated mother was within five feet of him. What she might have done if he had thrown her baby to the ground is uncertain. Seeing it in the pool, she did not hesitate. With the hatred of water which all the cat tribe possess, she could not trust her kitten to its dangers. With a shriek she sprang from the bough, and ran excitedly round the pool. Then the necessity gave her courage and she swam to the little one’s rescue. Dripping with the slimy water, her head woefully singed and matted with blood, Gordon saw her bring the little one to shore in her mouth and trot silently off into the thicket.
“If she had only known,” said he, “that I didn’t mean to hurt it.”
The creature had given him a great scare and called forth all the agility and ingenuity that he possessed, but now that it was over he felt nothing but admiration for his foe. And afterward, when he “recounted the adventure,” he always made a great point of its plunging into the pool and coming out, dripping and bloody, and trotting off with the kitten into the forest.
He had lost all desire to climb the tree, his leg was badly scratched, and his nerves on edge. He knew that he had come in a southerly direction from camp and that he had only to work his way northward through the woods to return. And though the way was tangled and baffling, he could have managed it except for one trifling circumstance.
He had lost the compass.
CHAPTER XVII
IN HOC SIGNO VINCES
It was now late in the afternoon, and the drizzling rain had stopped; but the sky remained dull, and a chill wind was blowing. The sun, which might have guided him, had not shown itself all day. He tried vainly to find it by holding his knife blade vertically on his thumb and twirling it round in hopes that it might reveal a faint shadow. He might have secured an outlook from the top of the hemlock, but his leg was scratched and sore and one sneaker torn almost apart. He realized now how exhausted he was. For a moment a panic fear seized him; then he remembered what Red Deer had once told him, in case he should be lost in the woods, “Don’t get rattled—keep your shirt on.”
“But I can’t even do that,” said Gordon.
He sat down on a bowlder. “If I ever hear Harry call this a peak again, I’ll—” Suddenly a thought came to him. The wind had not shifted; it was still in the east. He stood facing it, holding his left arm outstretched, sideways. “That ought to be the north,” said he. Looking where his hand pointed, he noticed a small hole in a tree trunk near him. A worm seemed to be hanging out of it, but as he approached it gave a sudden whisk and disappeared. It was no worm, but a mouse’s tail, and he recollected with great elation (for he seldom forgot anything) that a field-mouse almost always dwells on the south side of a tree. So, with the wind and the mouse-hole agreeing as to the compass points, Gordon started north.
He believed that camp was a mile and a half or two miles distant, and he sorely regretted now that he had not blazed the way for his return. But he went straight ahead, as he thought, pushing through the underbrush until he found himself in comparatively open land. There was no outlook here, and he was too stiff to climb a tree. Nevertheless he fancied that one or two objects were familiar, and was convinced that he was heading directly for camp.