CHAPTER XXV.

THE CAMP FIRE.

But Nick Ribsam was full of grit, and, though every step he took caused him pain, he persevered with that grim resolution that was a part of his nature from his very birth.

After walking some distance he found the soreness and stiffness leaving him, and he straightened up with something of his natural vim and elasticity of spirits.

“There’s one thing certain,” he added, recalling his encounter with the buck, “I didn’t have any one to help me out of that scrape, except the One who always helps him that helps himself; but I never wanted a friend more than then, and, if it hadn’t been for that oak, it would have been the last of Nicholas Ribsam.”

“There is another thing I have learned,” he added, with that glimmer of humor which was sure to show itself, “I know considerable more than I did yesterday; I have a good idea of how it feels when a wounded buck raises you, and, after this, I won’t shoot one of the creatures unless I’m sure of making a better shot than I did a while ago—­hallo!”

Well might he utter the last exclamation, for at that moment he came upon the dead body of the buck, lying as he had fallen on the earth, when at last he succumbed to the wound received at the hands of Nick himself.

The boy stopped to examine it, for he was much impressed by the discovery.

“That came very near ending in the death of us both:  nothing but the oak saved me.  I wonder whether I am going right.”

He raised his head from his examination, and looked about him, but he was without the means of judging whether he was following the proper direction or not.  When leaving the scene of his encounter with the deer, he had taken the course that seemed to be right, without pausing until he could make himself certain in the matter.

This is pretty sure, in a majority of cases, to lead one astray, but it so happened with Nick that he headed in a bee-line for the camp, where the impatient Sam Harper was awaiting him.

But the error came afterward:  he toiled forward without any guide, and soon began to turn to the left, so that he was in reality moving on the circumference of a large circle, without suspecting how much he wandered from the true course.

This peculiar mistake is made by many who are lost in the wilderness, and is supposed to be due to the fact that everybody is either right or left handed, instead of being ambidextrous as we all ought to be.

One side of the body being stronger than the other, we unconsciously exert the limb on that side the most, and swerve from a straight line, unless we have something to direct in the shape of a landmark or guiding-post.

It was not until Nick had gone a long ways out of the right course that he suspected his error:  the appearance of the camp fire which Sam Harper had kindled, was what led him to stop and make the best investigation he could.