FullReads

Halson paused, and I said: “But that isn’t all?”

“Oh no.” He continued thoughtfully silent for a little while before he resumed. “The amazing thing is that they got lost again, and that when they tried going back to the Canucks they couldn’t find the way.”

“Why didn’t they follow the sound of the chopping?” I asked.

“The Canucks had stopped, for the time being. Besides, Braybridge was rather ashamed, and he thought if they went straight on they would be sure to come out somewhere. But that was where he made a mistake. They couldn’t go on straight; they went round and round, and came on their own footsteps–or hers, which he recognized from the narrow tread and the dint of the little heels in the damp places.”

Wanhope roused himself with a kindling eye. “That is very interesting, the movement in a circle of people who have lost their way. It has often been observed, but I don’t know that it has ever been explained. Sometimes the circle is smaller, sometimes it is larger, but I believe it is always a circle.”

“Isn’t it,” I queried, “like any other error in life? We go round and round, and commit the old sins over again.”

“That is very interesting,” Wanhope allowed.

“But do lost people really always walk in a vicious circle?” Minver asked.

Rulledge would not let Wanhope answer. “Go on, Halson,” he said.

Halson roused himself from the revery in which he was sitting with glazed eyes. “Well, what made it a little more anxious was that he had heard of bears on that mountain, and the green afternoon light among the trees was perceptibly paling. He suggested shouting, but she wouldn’t let him; she said it would be ridiculous if the others heard them, and useless if they didn’t. So they tramped on till–till the accident happened.”

“The accident!” Rulledge exclaimed, in the voice of our joint emotion.

“He stepped on a loose stone and turned his foot,” Halson explained. “It wasn’t a sprain, luckily, but it hurt enough. He turned so white that she noticed it, and asked him what was the matter. Of course that shut his mouth the closer, but it morally doubled his motive, and he kept himself from crying out till the sudden pain of the wrench was over. He said merely that he thought he had heard something, and he had an awful ringing in his ears; but he didn’t mean that, and he started on again. The worst was trying to walk without limping, and to talk cheerfully and encouragingly with that agony tearing at him. But he managed somehow, and he was congratulating himself on his success when he tumbled down in a dead faint.”

“Oh, come now!” Minver protested.

“It is like an old-fashioned story, where things are operated by accident instead of motive, isn’t it?” Halson smiled with radiant recognition.

“Fact will always imitate fiction, if you give her time enough,” I said.

“Had they got back to the other picnickers?” Rulledge asked, with a tense voice.

“In sound, but not in sight of them. She wasn’t going to bring him into camp in that state; besides, she couldn’t. She got some water out of the trout-brook they’d been fishing–more water than trout in it–and sprinkled his face, and he came to, and got on his legs just in time to pull on to the others, who were organizing a search-party to go after them. From that point on she dropped Braybridge like a hot coal; and as there was nothing of the flirt in her, she simply kept with the women, the older girls, and the tabbies, and left Braybridge to worry along with the secret of his turned ankle. He doesn’t know how he ever got home alive; but he did, somehow, manage to reach the wagons that had brought them to the edge of the woods, and then he was all right till they got to the house. But still she said nothing about his accident, and he couldn’t; and he pleaded an early start for town the next morning, and got off to bed as soon as he could.”