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 my fist. I had lost all idea of course, dis- 

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

 "turned 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 Avay 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. 



