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, I have 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 I tried 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.