It was now late in the afternoon, and the drizzling rain had stopped; but the sky remained dull, and a chill wind was blowing. The sun, which might have guided him, had not shown itself all day. He tried vainly to find it by holding his knife blade vertically on his thumb and twirling it round in hopes that it might reveal a faint shadow. He might have secured an outlook from the top of the hemlock, but his leg was scratched and sore and one sneaker torn almost apart. He realized now how exhausted he was. For a moment a panic fear seized him; then he remembered what Red Deer had once told him, in case he should be lost in the woods, “Don’t get rattled—keep your shirt on.” “But I can’t even do that,” said Gordon.
He sat down on a bowlder. “If I ever hear Harry call this a peak again, I’ll—” Suddenly a thought came to him. The wind had not shifted; it was still in the east. He stood facing it, holding his left arm outstretched, sideways. “That ought to be the north,” said he. Looking where his hand pointed, he noticed a small hole in a tree trunk near him. A worm seemed to be hanging out of it, but as he approached it gave a sudden whisk and disappeared. It was no worm, but a mouse’s tail, and he recollected with great elation (for he seldom forgot anything) that a field-mouse almost always dwells on the south side of a tree. So, with the wind and the mouse-hole agreeing as to the compass points, Gordon started north.
He believed that camp was a mile and a half or two miles distant, and he sorely regretted now that he had not blazed the way for his return. But he went straight ahead, as he thought, pushing through the underbrush until he found himself in comparatively open land. There was no outlook here, and he was too stiff to climb a tree. Nevertheless he fancied that one or two objects were familiar, and was convinced that he was heading directly for camp.
Wet, shivering, sore, and tired, he plodded on. When he believed he was within call, he shouted, but there was no answer. He would give another shout a little farther on. Presently he came to a thicket, and in a few moments stood, limp and weary, staring about him in amazement, in the very spot of his fight with the lynx. There was the hemlock. There was the pool.
Very much discouraged, he sat down to rest, kicked off his battered sneaker, which was of no further use, and took a long “think.” He knew that he had done what people lost in the woods are almost sure to do—walked in a large circle.
“That’s a funny thing when you come to think of it,” he said; “we must be built lopsided.”
As he tugged his rebellious stocking into place, another idea came to him. Well he recollected one evening when Red Deer (in his civilized role of Dr. Brent) had sat on the porch talking with Mr. Lord. He, Gordon, had sat in the background catching and retaining everything like a sponge. He remembered Dr. Brent’s telling his father an interesting theory to account for this tendency of people to walk in a circle. The theory was that the heart, beating on the left side, throws extra strength and activity into the left leg, so that one unconsciously edges to the right. “Now,” thought Gordon, “if I just limp a little more on my sore leg, that ought to straighten things out.”
So, when he had rested, he started north again, resolving to keep this mischievous inclination of the heart in mind and counteract it by limping uniformly with his left leg. That his limping very nicely balanced the extra strength was demonstrated (to his own complete satisfaction, at least) when an hour later, shoeless and shirtless, but with a radiant smile, he limped into camp just as Harry was beginning to think of going in search of him.
“Harry, I don’t have to limp as bad as this, but I’ve made a wonderful discovery.”
“Where’s your shirt?”
“Wait till you hear—I’ve had a great adventure! You know we’re all lopsided, Harry, on account of our hearts; we’re not built true, and I’ve thought of a way—”
“All right, come in here and get dressed. Lucky you’ve got another shirt and a pair of sneakers. What have you been into now, you little son of trouble?”
“Shall I begin at the beginning, Harry?”
“Certainly! Let’s hear it all!”
So Gordon recounted his adventure with his wonderful discovery as a climax, and Harry listened with a dry smile. “Guess it was a lynx, all right,” he said.
After supper Harry displayed an elaborate drawing of a model aeroplane which he had made on the inside cover of his book. Ever since he had left Mr. Danforth’s hospitable roof, his thoughts had run somewhat on Penfield and his model. The result of his studying the diagram was that he had written Penfield a letter on the fly leaves of the book and stuffed it in his pocket to mail as soon as he should strike a post-office. It read:
Dear Pen:—
Be sure to soak your clockwork in kerosene oil. If you can’t hit on any whalebone, get an old umbrella and use the ribs. The silk will make good covering, too. drop a glass bead on your propeller axle—it will do for ball bearing. Put some vaseline on it. Be sure to have your covering hang a little over the back of the planes to hold the air a second, and I think the cover of a fountain pen would do better than a gas tip to hold your sticks together—it’s lighter. Hairpins are handy, too. Maybe you’ve got one of those bamboo porch screens that pull up and down. The strips would be great if you’re making a curved plane. If your sisters have any old hats with flowers on them, you’ll find good thin wire inside the stems. Peel the green stuff off. The wire would be just the thing for binding your frame corners, too. Don’t get discouraged. We’ve got them beaten already. Only don’t be too reckless with your glue, and have plenty of oil on your cog chain. And don’t have your propeller go too fast—it only cuts a hole in the air. If you could get hold of one of those little hoops ladies embroider on, you could cut it in half and you’d have good rudder frames. If you need strong spring wire, the sides of a pair of spectacles would be just the thing. You might find some good stuff in a willow chair. Be sure not to have any flat surfaces against the air.
We’ll try to see you before we go home. We’re up on Bulwagga Mountain now—still hunting. Hope to get a clue this afternoon or night.
Your friend, Harry Arnold.
 
P. S—If you can’t get hold of a lady’s hat, maybe Miss Crosby, over at Buck Mansion, can fix you up. Tell her I deduced that she has a few. Gordon had a fight with a lynx—how’s that? Lost his shirt and gained an adventure.
The night continued cloudy, and the boys had no alternative but to turn in again with neither information nor clue. And this was especially unfortunate since the moon was rising later each evening and soon all hope of night searching would have to be abandoned.
“Kid,” said Harry, “I don’t think they’d have gone north of this—I can’t get that woods down there out of my mind. But we could never follow the stream down, old boy, not with your leg as it is. It means more climbing than walking. It looks to me as if the stream would be a series of waterfalls. Then I wouldn’t dare go far from it without a compass.”
“Harry, now don’t spoil it all, whatever you do. I won’t vote for sending up a signal—there’s no use asking me. We’re going to find them. And everything is going fine. Gracious, I was scared when I lost that compass, but now I know it’s the regular thing to do, Harry. Now, there was a fellow they called the Black Ranger, and he did the same thing, and it said that without food or compass and limping from his wound, he pressed on with dauntless courage. And we’ve even got the limp, Harry—if it don’t go and get well before we find them. We ought not to find them, Harry, till we are well-nigh exhausted.”
“How’s that?”
“We ought to drag ourselves, weary but triumphant, into camp.”
“Hmmm,” said Harry.
He lay awake long, thinking. They might kindle a large signal fire on the mountain, but that, if it were seen, would lessen the triumph of finding the camp. It would be, in a way, calling for assistance, and he did not like the idea any more than Gordon did.
The morning dawned dull and cloudy; it bade fair to be a repetition of the previous day. Gordon slept long, and when he awoke he found the shelter empty save for himself. While he was pulling on his things, Harry came in, his mood wholly out of keeping with the weather.
“Hello there, Kiddo! Here are some minnows for breakfast.”
“Hello! I guess we won’t see any sign of campfire to-night. Doesn’t this weather beat all!”
“Don’t grumble about the weather now. This is just the day to do my sewing. I’ve got to patch up your stocking and fix you up generally, so that if you should meet any maidens you’ll be in shape to recount your adventures.”
“What’ll be our next move, Harry?”
“Our next move will be to explore that woods down there. That’s the likeliest place for camp that they could strike in this vicinity, it seems to me. It’s between the two forts, it’s flat woodland, and it’s got a stream running through it—this stream that begins up here. So I think we’d better get right down there and not waste any more time up here.”
“But when we get down on the mountain side, Harry, we won’t be able to see where we’re going.”
“We’re going down just the way we came up,” said Harry, “and strike into the Port Henry Road. I think we’ll hit a road that goes around the northern end of this old mountain and skirts the shore, and we’ll follow that along till we strike the stream in level country. If they’re down there at all, they’re near the stream—you can be sure of that; and we’ll follow along the stream to the lake. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if we found them.”
“But if we don’t?”
“Then we’ll go on to Port Henry, and I’ll buy a regular spyglass there if they have such a thing—and on to Bald Knob.—And if the collar button’s under the bed, we’ll find it, or break our necks in the attempt!”
“Or drop in our tracks is better, Harry.”
“Well, we’ll do that, then. So now for minnows and coffee and—do you want bacon?”
“Surely.”
“Bacon it is, and then the sewing circle. Dump that spool of thread out of the coffee pot, will you? Kid, you’re a horrible sight! You look as if you’d been through a sawmill.”
By ten o’clock they were picking their way down the western slope toward the Port Henry road. It is probably the easiest descent from the southern peak, but it was difficult for all that. Noontime found them again in open country, trudging along the road toward the little village of Port Henry, which is on the lake shore about three miles north of the mountain. Instinctively, each took a side of the road, watching it closely as they went along. Now and then Harry would pause to examine a trampled spot near the roadside. Every suspicious stone was carefully scrutinized, then kicked aside for any secret it might be hiding. Usually their inspection was only casual, and they discovered nothing which justified them in pausing. Footprints were out of the question considering the le............