There was an air of impatience
and nervousness about both of them.
I took my bicycle lantern and reached for the lines.
Then, standing clear of the buggy, I turned the horses
at right angles, to the north, as I imagined it to be.
When we started, I walked alongside the team through
dripping underbrush and held the lantern with my free
hand close down to the ground.
Two or three times I stopped during the next half hour,
trying, since we still did not strike the trail, to reason
out a different course. I was now wet through and through
up to my knees; and I had repeatedly run into willow-clumps,
which did not tend to make me any drier either. At last
I became convinced that in bolting the horses must have
swerved a little to the south, so that in starting up
again we had struck a tangent to the big bend north, just
beyond Bell's farm. If that was the case, we should have
to make another turn to the right in order to strike the
road again, for at best we were then simply going parallel
to it. The trouble was that I had nothing to tell me the
directions, not even a tree the bark or moss of which
might have vouchsafed information.
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