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 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 ; 30 I urged on vaguely—hoping nothing, trusting 
nothing, but simply asking for action to distract—and a crisis 
to end the suspense. 
