I went on with an energy increased by the ridiculousness of the situation, the danger that an experienced woodsman was in of getting home late for supper; the lateness of the meal being nothing to the gibes of the unlost.How long I kept this course, and how far I went on, I do not know; but suddenly I stumbled against an ill-placed tree, and sat down on the soaked ground, a trifle out of breath.It then occurred to me that I had better verify my course by the compass.There was scarcely light enough to distinguish the black end of the needle.To my amazement, the compass, which was made near Greenwich, was wrong.Allowing for the natural variation of the needle, it was absurdly wrong.It made out that I was going south when I was going north.It intimated that, instead of turning to the left, I had been making a circuit to the right.According to the compass, the Lord only knew where I was.
The inclination of persons in the woods to travel in a circle is unexplained.I suppose it arises from the sympathy of the legs with the brain.Most people reason in a circle: their minds go round and round, always in the same track.For the last half hour I had been saying over a sentence that started itself: "I wonder where that road is!" I had said it over till it had lost all meaning.I kept going round on it; and yet I could not believe that my body had been traveling in a circle.Not being able to recognize any tracks, Ihave no evidence that I had so traveled, except the general testimony of lost men.
The compass annoyed me.I've known experienced guides utterly discredit it.It couldn't be that I was to turn about, and go the way I had come.Nevertheless, I said to myself, "You'd better keep a cool head, my boy, or you are in for a night of it.Better listen to science than to spunk." And I resolved to heed the impartial needle.
I was a little weary of the rough tramping: but it was necessary to be moving; for, with wet clothes and the night air, I was decidedly chilly.I turned towards the north, and slipped and stumbled along.
A more uninviting forest to pass the night in I never saw.Every-thing was soaked.If I became exhausted, it would be necessary to build a fire; and, as I walked on, I couldn't find a dry bit of wood.
Even if a little punk were discovered in a rotten log I had no hatchet to cut fuel.I thought it all over calmly.I had the usual three matches in my pocket.I knew exactly what would happen if Itried to build a fire.The first match would prove to be wet.The second match, when struck, would shine and smell, and fizz a little, and then go out.There would be only one match left.Death would ensue if it failed.I should get close to the log, crawl under my hat, strike the match, see it catch, flicker, almost go out (the reader painfully excited by this time), blaze up, nearly expire, and finally fire the punk,--thank God! And I said to myself, "The public don't want any more of this thing: it is played out.Either have a box of matches, or let the first one catch fire."In this gloomy mood I plunged along.The prospect was cheerless;for, apart from the comfort that a fire would give, it is necessary, at night, to keep off the wild beasts.I fancied I could hear the tread of the stealthy brutes following their prey.But there was one source of profound satisfaction,--the catamount had been killed.Mr.
Colvin, the triangulating surveyor of the Adirondacks, killed him in his last official report to the State.Whether he despatched him with a theodolite or a barometer does not matter: he is officially dead, and none of the travelers can kill him any more.Yet he has served them a good turn.
I knew that catamount well.One night when we lay in the bogs of the South Beaver Meadow, under a canopy of mosquitoes, the serene midnight was parted by a wild and humanlike cry from a neighboring mountain."That's a cat," said the guide.I felt in a moment that it was the voice of "modern cultchah." " Modern culture," says Mr.
Joseph Cook in a most impressive period,--" modern culture is a child crying in the wilderness, and with no voice but a cry." That describes the catamount exactly.The next day, when we ascended the mountain, we came upon the traces of this brute,--a spot where he had stood and cried in the night; and I confess that my hair rose with the consciousness of his recent presence, as it is said to do when a spirit passes by.
Whatever consolation the absence of catamount in a dark, drenched, and howling wilderness can impart, that I experienced; but I thought what a satire upon my present condition was modern culture, with its plain thinking and high living! It was impossible to get much satisfaction out of the real and the ideal,--the me and the not-me.
At this time what impressed me most was the absurdity of my position looked at in the light of modern civilization and all my advantages and acquirements.It seemed pitiful that society could do absolutely nothing for me.It was, in fact, humiliating to reflect that it would now be profitable to exchange all my possessions for the woods instinct of the most unlettered guide.I began to doubt the value of the "culture" that blunts the natural instincts.