LOST IN THE WOODS. .' 191 



time, he said that he had no recollection of ever seeing the stream 

 before. Shortly we came out into the field and Mr. Fish did not 

 know his own house. Asked who lived there and did not seem 

 to recognize his own home until he had been inside the house for 

 several minutes with his family. 



I have related this instance of Mr. Fish to show how neces- 

 sary it is for one who has got slightly mixed in his course to keep 

 cool and not allow himself to become excited. If he does he 

 immediately loses his head and is at once lost, as in the case of 

 Mr. Fish. He was at no time more than four miles from his 

 house, and was quite familiar with the ground he was on during 

 the whole time. He was lost while following the deer that he 

 was in pursuit of. They led him into a windfall perhaps con- 

 taining one hundred acres, and it was while in this that he 

 became bothered as to the right course to go to his house. He 

 at once lost his head, or more proper, his reasoning faculties, and 

 at once became lost. 



Mr. Fish was east of the ridge and road and as he had a 

 compass, all there was for him to do was to consult the compass 

 and go west to the road, but Mr. Fish declared that his compass 

 would not work, and it might have been possible that he held the 

 compass so close to the gun barred that the compass did not work 

 properly. 



In my more than fifty years' life in the woods as a trapper 

 and 'hunter, it has been my lot to search for several persons lost 

 in the woods. Once in these same woods I searched for three 

 weeks for a little child four years old. At first the search for days 

 was carried on by more than a hundred men, then another man 

 and myself continued, then my companion gave it up. I continued 

 alone for days, but there has never been a trace of the child seen 

 or heard of, since its grandmother last saw the little fellow 

 sitting on the door step eating a piece of bread and butter on 

 the morning of its disappearance, along in the early 80's. 



To speak of the use of the pocket compass, I would say to 

 the trapper or hunter that where he can it is best to locate his 

 camp when in a section of a country where the woods are very 

 large, and the trapper or hunter is not well acquainted with the 



