ure of my condition. I peered upward through the darkness, but
all was blackness and gloom. The wind sighed mournfully through the
pines. The forest seemed alive with the screeching of night birds, the
angry barking of coyotes, and the prolonged, dismal howl of the gray
wolf. These sounds, familiar by their constant occurrence throughout
the journey, were now full of terror, and drove slumber from my
eyelids. Above all this, however, was the hope that I should be
restored to my comrades the next day.

Early the next morning I rose unrefreshed, and pursued my weary way
over the prostrate trunks. It was noon when I reached the spot where
my notices were posted. No one had been there. My disappointment was
almost overwhelming. For the first time, I realized that I was lost.
Then came a crushing sense of destitution. No food, no fire; no means
to procure either; alone in an unexplored wilderness, one hundred and
fifty miles from the nearest human abode, surrounded by wild beasts,
and famishing with hunger. It was no time for despondency. A moment
afterwards I felt how calamity can elevate the mind, in the formation
of the resolution "not to perish in that wilderness."

The hope of finding the party still controlled my plans. I thought, by
traversing the peninsula centrally, I would be enabled to strike the
shore of the lake in advance of their camp, and near the point of
departure for the Madison. Acting upon this impression, I rose from a
sleepless couch, and pursued my way through the timber-entangled
forest. A feeling of weakness took the place of hunger. Conscious of
the need of food, I felt no cravings. Occasionally, while scrambling
over logs and through thickets, a sense of faintness and exhaustion
would come over me, but I would suppress it with the audible
expression, "This won't do; I must find my company." Despondency would
sometimes strive with resolution for the mastery of my thoughts. I
would think of home--of my daughter--and of the possible chance of
starvation, or death in some more terrible form; but as often as these
gloomy forebodings came, I would strive to banish them with
reflections better adapted to my immediate necessities. I recollect at
this time discussing the question, whether there was not implanted by
Providence in every man a principle of self-preservation equal to any
emergency which did not destroy his reason. I decided this question
affirmatively a thousand times afterwards in my wanderi