THE TEXAN HUNTRESS. 287 



ing consciousness that I was lost ! — as utterly lost as if I had 

 just dropped upon the planet from the moon, with a piece of 

 green cheese in mj fist. I had lost all idea of course, dis- 

 tance, or time during the chase, and now was completely 

 "tm-ned round." I immediately felt the full dangers of my 

 situation. I knew the direction in which we had started, "but 

 knew, too, as well, that from the numerous turns the chase 

 had taken, that I could no more tell which way to start back 

 than if I had been physically blind, as I had, in fact, been 

 mentally so. 



I had imprudently come out without a pocket compass, and 

 was a young woodsman lost upon strange plains. I did not 

 know enough of the geography of the country to render what 

 knowledge I had of natural signs of any avail to me here. I 

 was, in a word, sufficiently panic-struck to act more like the 

 inexperienced person that I was, than with the self-possession 

 these circumstances so much required. My heart beat very 

 loud and fast as I wheeled my horse, and with a sultry feeling 

 of recklessness, spurred him into one of the narrow openings, 

 without stopping one moment to consider which way or whither 

 it should lead me. The poor deer I left upon the spot where 

 it fell, for I was too much startled to think of dissecting it 

 now— since, of all the terrible fates that could ever befall a 

 human being, this of being lost in such a country, had always 

 been most formidable to me. 



I had known of so many instances of terrible suffering and 

 dreary death from such a cause, at this early time, — when 

 even individual settlements were sometimes eighty or a hun- 

 dred miles apart in the direction of Galveston, and none in 

 the opposite direction for thousands, — that now the chill 

 revulsion seemed first like present annihilation, and then 

 like such remote and undefined suffering as was far more 

 formidable ; so I urged on vaguely — hoping nothing, trusting 

 nothing, but simply asking for action to distract — and a crisis 

 to end the suspense. 



