Ed lost no time in making most of the daylight still remaining to get a good start around the mountain toward Hermitage Rest. For a time this was easy, as the setting sun gave an easy guide to the points of the compass, but before he had gone far down the slope the sun had dropped out of sight behind a mountain top, and as there was only the vaguest trail in these wild parts, Ed soon realized it would take all his scout knowledge to find his way at all. He crashed along through the undergrowth often scaring up wild rabbits and other small animals which on another occasion he would have delighted to stalk, but now his heart was so heavy he hardly noticed them as he hastened on. Ed had been tramping the woods since morning, with only a light snack at noon, as both he and Westy had looked forward to a good dinner with plenty of fish that night, but now their fish lay abandoned on the rocks, no doubt making a meal for the vultures, and Ed had no time, even if he had brought along his tackle, to stop and catch fish for his own supper. He could not help wondering what Mr. Wilde and the camera man would think when they returned to camp and found not only no supper but no scouts. A broken piece of sweet chocolate, which he remembered he had in his hip pocket, was the only supper Ed had, and he was hungry enough to feel uncomfortable, but anxiety for Warde and Westy made him forget himself and hurry along.
He took the precaution to fill his canteen with water, then hastened on with no other refreshment. By this time he had retraced the steps over which he and Westy had lingered fishing all day and struck the trail leading down toward the Hermitage.
As he got farther and farther down, the sky grew overcast obscuring all chance of a moon, the trees became denser and Ed found himself in such darkness as to make him feel perilously confused along this unfamiliar trail. Before this he had encountered landmarks which he remembered passing on their way up—a lightning-blasted pine; the big loose rock where Warde had complained of turning his ankle, an abandoned squirrel nest, a fallen tree and such marks as a trained scout would observe and remember for future guidance. These had made him confident that he had been going the right way, but now it was so dark that Ed could see little before him, and he began to fear that he had lost the trail. For a moment the mountains seemed so vast, the woods so dense, that poor hungry Ed felt like a very small atom alone in the wilderness, and indeed he is not the only boy who would have quailed a little at the task ahead of him! Miles of introdden nightfall, and that grim need for haste, might well dismay a man as well as a boy! However, Ed was stout-hearted and even when alone kept up that humorous spirit of his which so often saved the day.
“Alone in the great city,” he muttered, as he stumbled over a log, “I better ask my way of the next policeman.” Cheering up a little at this, he plunged on, but was brought to a standstill by a thicket through which he could not pass, and this made him realize he was off the trail.
Knowing that every minute’s delay might mean life or death to Warde, Ed found himself choking up with fear lest he get lost in the woods and fail to get a doctor in time. Just as he had often restored the other boy’s spirits in moments of trial by his unquenchable humor, Ed now bolstered up his own waning courage by comic comments to himself. “Gosh, these street lights are bum,” he complained, and blundered around, beating at twigs until he pushed through to a clearer stretch beyond.
H............