IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



cook the trout, or that food would be a 

 help. Reason and judgment were in abey- 

 ance; impulses, scarcely more than primi- 

 tive, were flinging him hither and thither 

 without design. When the delicate bal- 

 ance of the mind is upset atavistic instincts 

 thrust in, but they have ceased to guide 

 trustworthily. One of our men, whom 

 other experiences had instructed in the 

 psychology of these cases, told us that, with 

 exhaustion, the faculties resume control, it 

 becomes possible to think lucidly, and then 

 the wanderer may extricate himself should 

 strength remain. But the return of mental 

 power is at the expense of such physical 

 collapse that the issue is doubtful. Where- 

 fore, dam the emotional outrush by every 

 mechanical means, — throw off the pack, 

 sit down, light your pipe, think. 



Not the tenderfoot alone is exposed to 

 these disabling panics. Clovis, Indian of 

 the pure blood, accomplished in every line 

 of sport (and poaching), old hand on the 

 grands voyages, was hardly able to tell for 

 laughing, how that once he was utterly lost 

 in his own wood-lot. According to the 

 tale — needing woefully an accompani- 

 ment of moving pictures — the earth made 

 a half turn with abrupt malevolence, set- 

 226 



