At Boothbay Harbor, Mike Murphy hired Sherb Doloff to take him in his
small motor boat _Sunshine_ to Hailstone Point. It was the season when
the days are long, and the sun was only a little past meridian as the
small boat chug-chugged up beside the projecting finger of land and the
eager Mike leaped ashore.
“There isn’t any path on this side of the point,” said Captain Doloff,
“but you can’t miss your way. A few miles through the woods and you’ll
be there.”
“Have no worriment for me; I’m not the bye to go astray, even if the
country _is_ new,” was the confident reply of Mike, who, having paid the
young man the fee agreed upon, bade him good-by and plunged into the
fragrant pine forest. He carried no firearms, not even his revolver,—a
fact which caused him no misgiving, since it seemed impossible that he
should run into any personal danger. This was not the section of Maine
frequented by wild animals, and though there were a few Indians, here
and there, all were civilized and they attract no more interest than
those of the Caucasian race. A tramp of several miles on such a balmy
day was enjoyable when there was just a tinge of crispness in the air to
remind one that autumn was only a few weeks away. The pine cones and
moss, and the many years’ accumulation of decaying foliage formed a
spongy carpet, upon which the shoe pressed without giving back any
sound, and made walking the pleasantest sort of gentle exercise.
Mike carried the heavy buckthorn cane which his father had brought with
him from Ireland, but he did not need its aid. He twirled it as an
officer dallies with his swagger stick and sang snatches of song in that
wonderfully sweet voice, which no one could hear without being charmed.
Of course it was impossible for the lad to be unaware of his amazing
gift in this respect, and you have been told of some of the occasions
when he used it for the delight of others. He frequently sang for his
father and mother, and again, as in the present instance, the low
delightful humming was for his own pleasure, since one of the blessed
peculiarities of music is that it requires no “witnesses” for its
perfect enjoyment.
Still, as has also been shown, Mike was never forward in displaying his
unrivaled voice. Many a time he had listened to the singing of others
and joined in the applause without a single one of the audience
suspecting how infinitely superior he was to the foremost of the
company, nor did Mike ever enlighten them.
With all his waggishness and pugnacity, he was devout in his religious
belief and had won the commendation more than once of the priests at
home, who knew all about him.
“I wonder why the Lord is so good to me,” he reflected with reverent
emotion; “there ain’t a meaner rapscallion in creation than me, and yet
He treats me as if I were a twin brother to Alvin and Chester and lots
of other folks. I must try to remember all this, but I’m sartin to
furget it on the first chance that comes to me.
“Now, about those Boy Scouts,—I wonder what they are; I never heard of
’em before; I s’pose they call themselves Scouts ’cause they’re always
scouting for a row, and kick up a shindy whenever they git the chance.
I’ll try to do me part, as I always did in the owld country, and since I
set fut in Ameriky.”
Giving rein to his mental whimsies, Mike strolled forward until certain
he had traveled the full distance. He halted and looked around. Several
times a half dozen crows, perched in the treetops, catching sight of him
dived away with loud cawing warnings to their comrades of an intrusion
into their domain of a foe to be feared, but thus far he had noted no
other species of birds. Now, however, when he peered upward through an
opening among the branches, he saw a black speck gliding across the thin
azure and vanishing in the ocean of ether beyond. It was an eagle,
soaring so far aloft that its piercing vision had no knowledge of the
tiny form thousands of feet below amid the firs and pines.
“Gosling Lake,” repeated Mike; “I must be near the same, as dad remarked
whin his friend Jim Muldoon cracked his head wid the shillalah, but I
obsarve it not.”
He listened keenly but caught no distinctive sound. The soft, almost
inaudible murmur which is never absent in a wide stretch of forest, or
when miles inland from the breathing ocean, brooded in the air and has
been called the “voice of silence” itself.
Thus far the youth had not felt the slightest misgiving, and even now he
was sure there was no cause for alarm. If he was astray it could not be
for long. He was not far from some of the numerous towns and villages in
that section, and if he could not find the Boy Patrol camp, he surely
would not have to search far before coming upon friends. If the waning
afternoon should find him in the woods, it would be no special hardship
to pass the night under the trees, though he did not fancy the prospect
and did not mean to stay out unless necessity compelled.
None the less it dawned upon him for the first time that his task was
not likely to be as easy as he had supposed. Only an experienced
woodsman can hold to a mathematical line in the trackless wilderness,
which was what he must do to reach the camp of the Boy Patrol.
“It would be no task if there was a path or road, and I was sitting in
an automobile, wid me hand on the steering gear or directing the
_Deerfut_ up the Kennebec, or if them byes had put up guide posts, which
the same I’ll remind them to do.”
If there was one thing regarding which Mike felt certain it was that he
had kept to a straight course after stepping ashore from the launch; but
if such were the fact, how could it be explained that he had traveled
all of this distance, and yet, so far as appearances went, was as far
from his goal as when he started?
“It’s more than I can understand, as Maggie Keile said when her taycher
told her ‘queue’ spelled ‘q.’ Now, if I could come upon the tracks of
some person it would be all that I could ask—and begorra! here they
be!”
Looking down at the ground, his eyes rested upon the very thing he
wished to see: there was the impression visible in the soft leaves.
Scarcely a rod from where he was standing was a yielding patch of moss
where the trail showed with clearness. The outline of the broad sole of
a shoe could be plainly traced until it became more obscure on the drier
leaves. Mike stepped nearer and studied the “signs.”
“Now, that felly knowed where he wanted to go, and not being such a fool
as me, he’s gone there. All I have to do is to keep to the course he
took and I’ll come out somewhere. I’ll stick close, as the fly paper
said to me whin I sat down on it.”
Not doubting that he had found the key to the problem, all anxiety
vanished. It was not to be supposed that the individual who had preceded
him was ignorant of the woods and the quickest ways of emerging from
them. Mike even figured on coming upon him with the appearance of
accident, and of keeping from him his own need of assistance in going to
the Boy Patrol camp.
“It may be they’ve been here so short a time that he hasn’t obsarved the
same, but Gosling Lake has been in these parts a good many years, and
he’ll be sure to know where it is. I’ll draw it out of him as if I don’t
care much.”
The youth had not forgotten that simplest of all expedients which is the
first to come to an astray person. This was to shout at the top of his
voice. More than likely he would be heard at the Boy Scout camp, and if
not there, by the stranger whom he was trailing. But he was not ready to
admit that he really needed help, and to ask for assistance would be a
confession that he was frightened for his own safety. He would be
ashamed to appear in such a plight, and Alvin and Chester would be sure
to make the most of it. What more humiliating than to be introduced to a
lot of strangers as one who did not know enough to travel a few miles
through the woods without some person to lead him by the hand?
“Not yet,” he muttered, compressing his lips with resolve. “I wonder
whether them Boy Scouts can tell by looking at a person’s footprints
whether they were made an hour or a month ago. Howsumiver, I don’t see
that it makes any difference here. He must have gone this way sometime
and all I have to do is to folly him till I come upon him or the place
where he wint, which will sarve as well.”
Less than half an hour later, the trailer abruptly halted with another
wondering exclamation. Again he had come upon a velvety bed of moss,
where he looked upon the imprint, not of one pair but of two pairs of
shoes. They were side by side, with one set of impressions as distinct
as the other, and all looking so much alike that Mike was struck with an
absurd fancy.
“It can’t be that the man has growed four legs or is creeping along with
shoes on his hands as well as his faat. Each print looks more like the
others than it does like itself——”
A shiver ran down his spine and he gasped. He recoiled a step,
scrutinized the footprints, and then advanced and compared them with
what he had first come upon.
“Begorra! it was mesilf that made ’em all!”
It was the astounding truth. He was trailing himself. Instead of moving
in a straight line as he believed he had been doing from the first, he
had been walking—at least during the latter part of his tramp—in a
circle. You know that when a person is lost in a trackless waste he is
almost sure to do this, unless he is a master of woodcraft or uses the
utmost precaution against going astray.
Many explanations of this peculiar tendency have been given, but it is
probably due to the fact that one side of every man and woman is more
developed and stronger than the other. A right-handed man is more
powerful on that side, and the reverse is the case with a left-handed
person. Very few are ambidextrous. We unconsciously allow for this
condition in our daily walks and movements, since we are surrounded by
landmarks as may be said; but when these aids are removed, we are swayed
by the muscles on one side more than by those on the other. A
right-handed person unconsciously verges to the left, while the
left-handed one does the opposite. The impulse being uniform, even if
slight, his course naturally assumes the form of a circle.
It was hardly to be expected that Mike Murphy should reason out this
explanation, for he had never before experienced anything of the kind.
So far as woodcraft was concerned he could not have been more ignorant.
He removed his hat, ran his fingers through his abundant red hair and
laughed, for he could not close his eyes to the comical absurdity of it
all.
“It’s a mighty qu’ar slip, as me cousin said whin he started to go up
stairs and bumped down cellar, and be the same token Mike Murphy is lost
to that extent in these Maine woods that he’ll niver find his way out
till some one takes his hand and leads him like a blind beggar.
“There must be some plan to figger the thing out,” he added, as he
replaced his hat. “I’ve heerd that there be many signs that do guide one
when he’s off the track. Alvin once told me he had heard an old hunter
say that there’s more bark on one side of a tree than the ither, but I
disremember whether it was the east or west or north or south side, and
I can’t strip off the bark to measure it, so that idea will do me no
good. Then I’ve heerd that the tops of some of the trees dip the most
toward a certain p’int of the compass, but I don’t mind me whether the
same are apple trees or pear trees or some ither kind, and which is the
side they nod their heads on. Ah, why did I forgit it?”
He drew forth his small mariner’s compass and eagerly studied the
dancing needle.
“That little finger ought to p’int to the north, but it don’t!” he added
disgustedly, noting that the flickering bit of steel, instead of
indicating the ornamented “N,” fixed upon the “SSW” almost opposite. He
did not know that the needle is always “true to the Pole,” and that all
he had to do was to shift the case around so as to make it correspond.
It was beyond his comprehension.
His only recourse—if it should prove a recourse—was to call for help.
Peering around among the shaggy columns of bark, without seeing the
first sign of life, he shouted in the voice which, clear as the tone of
a Stradivarius violin, penetrated farther than even he supposed among
the forest arches:
“Hello!”
He was thrilled almost instantly by the welcome reply:
“Hello!”