LOST IN THE WILDERNESS 213 



was some days before he quite recovered. The 

 whole thing had not lasted more than half an 

 hour, but in that short space of time he had near- 

 ly been driven crazy by fear and the knowledge 

 that he was lost in the woods. I am positive that 

 in a couple of hours he would have been either 

 dead or out of his mind. It was by the greatest 

 of luck that he happened to come back almost to 

 his starting point. He had gone up the right 

 gully, then over the spur of the mountain and 

 down the left one, forming almost a circle of a 

 mile and a half long. Had I not gone back for 

 my axe and provisions I should have missed him 

 and God alone knows in what condition I should 

 Have found him. In the afternoon I returned to 

 our fishing camp, where he could be made more 

 comfortable. 



The next day we did not travel, and I busied 

 myself drying fish, and on the third left to re- 

 turn home. To show in what constant dread 

 the poor fellow was, I will relate an incident that 

 occurred a little later, on our next trip. That 

 day we had visited a small chain of lakes, in one 

 of which I located a beaver lodge. As William 

 did not understand the handling of a canoe 

 very well, I thought trapping would be surer 

 than shooting to secure meat. So I put out two 

 steel traps and taking note of the direction of the 

 wind we camped on the southern slope of the lake 

 some forty or fifty yards from the water. This 



