Anxious Waiting

The first few yards of her trip downhill Sally managed with comparative comfort, but soon after the ice path grew steeper and her footing less secure. Then she would slide for a few feet, catching at any tree or frozen shrub along her route. A quarter of a mile away already she was sorry she had attempted the descent alone.

“Alice! Alice! Dan! Dan!” she called, hoping that some one of her friends had discovered her absence and would come searching for her. But no one answered and no one came. Should she return up the slope, or wait where she was until the others returned? The time could not be long; already they had been away from Tahawus cabin two hours and had promised to return before twilight.
155

Five minutes of waiting and Sally found herself growing numb from the cold. She had not been exercising, and toasting herself in front of the open fire evidently had made her more susceptible to the cold. Unquestionably she must move on in one direction or the other, and yet to go back would mean that the return journey would be doubly long. Besides, she wanted to be home. A vision of her mother and father, of the Camp Fire guardian, of their older guests seated about the great fire in the living-room of the cabin assailed her. Anxious they probably were already at the failure of the younger members of the house party to return.

Moving cautiously a few feet further along, Sally’s foot struck against a stone concealed by the ice, yet her fall did not appear to have injured her; as she lay quiet she felt more dazed than hurt.

Soon after she was up and on her way again.

But now the snow trail was no longer so plain as it had been and she was therefore obliged to study the route more carefully. However, she concluded that if one kept steadily down the hill toward the valley one could not go far astray and once on level ground walking would be less difficult.
156

Yet if only she had not suggested this outdoor excursion, which had proved such a disappointment to her!

From cold, from fatigue and disappointment the slow tears coursing down her cheeks seemed to freeze into tiny crystals. By and by she was so cold that she could not move rapidly, although aware that in action lay her only safeguard.

Another false step and Sally was glad to awaken to the realization that her second fall had brought her further down the hill. In a quarter of a mile more doubtless she would reach the frozen bank of Half Moon Lake and be able to see the lights of their camp on the farther side, for although the lake was of considerable length it was not more than fifty yards wide.

At the foot of the hill Sally found herself in a small ravine, where the ice had formed only a thin layer above the drifting snow. Attempting to cross the ravine she sank to her knees, but managed to flounder out again.

In order to console herself she attempted to recall various Camp Fire maxims which might afford her courage or inspiration, but concluded that concentration upon her task left no opportunity for other ideas.
157

On the farther side of the ravine which she did not remember to have crossed earlier in the afternoon there was no gleaming surface of water frozen into the winter landscape.

Instantly Sally appreciated that she had lost the trail and had come down the hill at some distant point from Tahawus cabin. Across the lake at any hour of the day or night one could see blue curls of smoke rising from the cabin, or at dusk the lights gleaming from the windows, but now no human habitation was visible.

Sally was in a wor............