Felix walked for half an hour, trying to keep as near to the course he had laid out as seemed possible. Really it was not such an easy proposition as he had at first calculated. Why was it he had so poor a sense of direction, he could not say? But he felt sure, that unless he improved very much in this respect, he could never hope to make a good woodsman like Tom was, for instance.
Somehow, by this time, the boy began to lose a little of his former confidence. Things did not seem at all familiar, and he began to feel sure that he could not have come this way.
Once more he consulted his compass, and tried to figure out which direction stood for home. He laughed at himself for feeling so uncertain. What a silly sensation this must be to a proud boy, to realize that he is actually all at sea in the woods, and cannot say for a certainty which way he ought to go.
Felix laid out a new course, and made a fresh start. He was not at all discouraged as yet, and only looked on the thing in the light of a joke; just as he had his sailing through the air, to hang to the limb of the tree, after the buck had given him a rise in the world.
Once he heard a shot ahead. This caused him to wonder whether it could be Tom, or some one else; and he soon decided that if his chum were anywhere near by he would be more apt to give the well known signal of three shots in order to let the wanderer know of his presence; when Felix would be expected to answer in kind.
Tom had warned him several times to keep an eye out for certain vicious characters, said to be in hiding away up in this part of Wyoming—men who had once been honest guides, but drifted into bad ways; and having been known to kill game in the Yellowstone Park reservation, were being sought after by the authorities, who meant to make an example of them to deter others from doing likewise.
He had understood that such men might not be averse to robbing and abusing a young chap who happened to cross their path; and so Felix, with this troublesome thought struggling in his brain, walked on in silence, looking cautiously to the right and to the left, as if he feared that he might suddenly run upon some kind of danger.
Was that a groan he heard; or did some wild animal give vent to a sound?
It seemed to come from the bushes over to his left; and as he stood stock-still, and listened, he once more heard the strange and doleful sound, which seemed to be half way between a groan and a grunt.
Immediately Felix lowered his burden softly to the ground, and clutching his rifle in readiness for instant use, he walked slowly in that direction, scanning every foot as he thus advanced.