It was useless to attempt to retrace his steps, for it was impossible to climb up that incline, which came so near burying him out of sight, so he moved forward, with rocks all around him—­right, left, in the rear, and in the front.  There was considerable stunted vegetation, also, and, as the day was quite warm, and no wind could reach him, he found the labor of traveling with a heavy rifle anything but fun.  Still, he had no thought of giving up, or even halting to rest, so long as his strength held out, and he kept it up until he concluded that it was about time that he reached the ravine for which he aimed from the first.

“It must be right ahead, yonder,” he said, after pausing to survey his surroundings.  “I’ve kept going toward it ever since I picked myself up, and I know I wasn’t very far away.”

He had been steadily ascending for a half hour, and he believed that he had nearly reached the level upon which he had spent the night.  His view was so shut in by the character of his surroundings, that he could recognize nothing, and he was compelled, therefore, to depend upon his own sagacity.

Fred had enough wit to take every precaution against going astray, for he had learned long since how liable any one in his circumstances was to make such a blunder.  He fixed the position of the sun with regard to the ravine, and as the orb was only a short distance above the horizon, he was confident of keeping his “reckoning.”

“That’s mighty strange!” he exclaimed, when, having climbed up the place he had fixed in his mind, he looked over and found nothing but a broken country beyond.  “There is n’t anything there that looks like the pass I’m looking for.”

He took note of the position of the sun, and then carefully recalled the direction of the ravine with regard to that, and he could discover no error in the course which he had followed.  According to the reasoning of common sense, he ought to strike it at right angles.  But just then he recalled that the gorge did not follow a straight line.  Had it done so, he would have succeeded in what he had undertaken, but it was otherwise, and so he failed.

“I’ll try a little more.”

With no little labor, he climbed to an eminence a short distance away, where he hoped to gain a glimpse of the promised land; but the most studied scrutiny failed to show anything resembling the pass.

“I’m lost!” he exclaimed, in despair.

CHAPTER XXIII A PERILOUS PASSAGE

Fred Munson was right.  In his efforts to regain the pass by which he had entered the mountains, he had gone astray, and he knew no more in what direction to turn than if he had dropped from the moon.  The sun was now well up above the horizon, and he not only had the mortification of feeling that he had lost much precious time, but that he was likely to lose much more.

With the feeling of disappointment came that of hunger, and he questioned himself as to how he was likely to obtain that with which to stave off the pangs of hunger.