Now he thought to himself that the person who had met with this trifling accident was either not a scout at all or a scout in a great hurry. For such a thing as a scout calmly falling off a log was preposterous, and Gordon would not entertain the thought except on the theory of great haste. But how had both patrols, sixteen boys, gotten through this grove leaving never a sign? For the pink chalk identified the travelers as the Oakwood troop.

He gathered up a few pieces of bark and some leaves, and putting out his fire made his way hastily up through the grove. Presently he stood at its edge and looked across a spacious stretch of meadow land, beyond which were the grim, dark hills. He kindled another fire on a huge, convex piece of bark and, kneeling, crept along the edge of the grove, endeavoring to discover where the trail came out. But he could find no sign. It was now time to pull up his stocking again and take a long “think,” as he called it.

The result of his “think” was that he walked out into the field about one hundred and fifty feet, placed his little portable fire on the ground and enlarged it with a fresh supply of fuel from the grove. He watched it till its volume satisfied him, then returning to the edge of the grove he “shinnied” up a tree, but was careful not to embarrass his vision by looking directly at the fire. He looked about halfway between it and the grove and there, thrown into bold relief by the neighboring fire and his own high position, there ran a little straight trail across the meadow which died away short of the further side. He slid down from the tree, planted his staff in the ground near his fire, and shook a few burning twigs a yard or two from it. Then he carried his fire as best he could, for its bark tray was now ignited, still farther across the field, as far as the point where he thought the trail had become invisible to him from the tree. Returning to the edge of the grove, he climbed up the tree again. Sure enough, there was the trail visible farther on in the glow of the second fire, and entering the thick woods beyond the meadow. It was barely discernible at that point, yet Gordon, from his high position and by concentrating his gaze, could determine the faint, shadowy line, flickering between visibility and invisibility, as it wound into the silent forest. When he took his eyes from it for a moment, he lost it, and picked it out again with difficulty.

The idea of following it was out of the question; so, looking steadily, he picked out a certain tree near which the trail entered, studying as best he could its height, size, and conformation. Climbing down from the tree and keeping this beacon constantly in view, he ran across the field, stamped out the few remaining embers of his first fire, took his staff, and made a bee-line for his beacon. When he reached it he could not, for the life of him, discover the faintest indication of the trail across the field, but there, opening before him, was a well-defined, beaten path up through the forest. He saw it in the glow from his second fire, a few yards back, which was now dying fast. Leaning against the big tree which had guided him across the meadow, he looked back over the trailless space which he had forced to give up its secret. He looked at the tall, black trees of the grove beyond, whose smooth floor of pine needles had tried to baffle and confound him. Then he threw his duffel bag over his shoulder, and feeling his way cautiously with his staff, started up into the thick forest.

CHAPTER V
THE FOREST HITS BACK

His whole thought now was to reach the camp and surprise the two patrols and Red Deer. Feeling his way cautiously on and upward, for it was a wooded hillside he was traversing, he managed to pick his way along the winding forest path. Now he stumbled over naked roots, now some overhanging or projecting bough impeded his progress. It was useless to look for signs in such darkness; it was with difficulty that he kept to the wild, thickly grown trail. Sometimes he paused, undecided as to its direction, but always went on again, reassured by some trifling clue. Now and then, a clear, unobstructed opening of a few yards convinced him that he was in the path. At other times his only resource was to feel about with hands and feet, determining as best he might the path of least resistance and pressing through its tangled brush to find always an opening farther on. It was difficult work. No one who had gone before, no roadside code, could help him here.

Once or twice he thought of going back and resuming his quest with Harry in the morning, but he had gone so far that it seemed his easiest course, however difficult and involved, to press forward. Moreover, he was fast falling into the odd conceit of viewing the surrounding country, which he had nonchalantly called a haystack, in the light of a great adversary which had thrown down a challenge to him, and he must perforce take up the challenge, else be a coward and a “quitter.” So far he had held his own, and what a glory it would be to march into camp having vanquished these silent, baffling hosts of wood and hill and darkness. “Hello, Charlie,” he would say to the Beavers’ corporal, “hurry up there and get me a bite to eat, will you?” His whole ambition was now to walk carelessly into their midst and squat down by the camp-fire with some cordial, offhand remark.

From this train of thought, he was presently aroused by a sudden vigorous strategic move on the part of his imagined foe. His staff, which he had been bringing to the ground before him like a walking-stick with each step, suddenly sank, touching nothing. He had the presence of mind to drop it and throw both arms quickly behind him, which inclined his body slightly backward and enabled him to retreat a step or two.

Shaking from head to foot, he fumbled in the little flap pocket in his hat crown and lit a match. It flared a second, then went out. But in the sudden glare he saw that he was standing on the brink of a yawning chasm. Still trembling from his narrow escape, he struck another light and saw that one of his footprints was within eighteen inches of the precipice and that the other had actually rested on the very edge, displacing some of the earth, which had crumbled and fallen in. Gordon had had his first lesson in the tactics which the wilderness can use.

He lay flat with his head over the edge and looked down. Nothing but darkness. So again he must use his faithful ally, the fire. Kindling a fire was his great stunt. He would gather up a few dry, brittle twigs or cones, scrape out a little punk, arrange them daintily, make a dome over them with his hands, and presently show you a very ambitious little blaze, as a magician will take a mysterious rabbit from a hat. “Do the fire trick, Kid,” the boys of the troop would say to him. So now he foraged about, accumulated the necessary materials, and presently had a very respectable flame. But the glare about seemed only to make the depths of the precipice darker. It had shown him, however, that the soil displaced by his perilous step was not the only soil that had been disturbed. Scarce two feet farther along the edge of the bank quite a sizable piece of earth had caved in. But he could see nothing below. He cut a straight stick about the size of an ordinary cane. This he whittled with his jack-knife, cutting in from the end of the stick to a depth of about eight inches, until the curly shavings formed a sort of brush. Between these wooden bristles he wedged as much tree gum as he could find on the adjacent trees, and lighting his torch, went cautiously along the edge of the bank.